Featured Items
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Featured Items
Saul Bellow and others, Published by Various, 1959.
Description:
A remarkable collection of correspondence received by Saul Bellow during the year he published "Henderson the Rain King" and co-founded the short-lived yet influential literary magazine "The Naked Savage". The lone Bellow SIGNED item a single typed sheet, marked page 5 and with his hand corrections, the final page of his essay "The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Fact of the Story", which was published Feb.15, 1959 in the NY Times. In all, 101 separate items, 90 of them SIGNED, both typed and handwritten, with 48 original postmarked envelopes. All but 3 of the items dated or attributable to the period July-November, 1959. Most of the material has to do with "The Naked Savage", and through these letters you can watch the magazine evolve. Amazing literary and personal content, including a warm full page handwritten letter from Ralph Ellison ( ."Fanny is fine, Rufus goes around singing "I Love You Porgy", while I'm still coughing and sneezing my brain away.") typed letters from Lillian Hellman(1), Wright Morris(1), Alfred Leslie(1), Mark Harris(2), Dan Wakefield(2), Josephine Herbst(3), Harvey Swados(3), Herbert Gold(5), and handwritten letters from Harold Rosenberg(2), Keith Botsford(5), Richard Elman(1), Norman di Giovanni(1), Roberta Markels ( Bellow's lover)(3), and Edward Shils(1). And from the publishing side, letters from Aaron Asher, Pascal Covici, George Weidenfeld, Jack Ludwig, and Henry Volkening, among many others. Some of the related materials include royalty statements from Vanguard Press and Weidenfeld & Nicolson; a copy of the editor's contract for "The Noble Savage", and even a royalty deposit slip to Bellow's bank account ! These letters reveal much about the writers and their current writing, friendships, jealousies, travels, and career and life challenges. Overtly and between-the-lines, they also reveal much about Saul Bellow as a friend, mentor, lover, editor, and fellow writer. This stunning collection is from the estate of W. Carl Jackson, who at his death was Dean of Libraries at Indiana University.
Genre: Literature, letters
Price $25,000.00
Wallace Stegner, The Prairie Press, Muscatine, Iowa, 1938.
Description:
The only edition of this title, his 3rd published book, limited to 490 copies. Cheever 23. Especially SCARCE in Fine condition AND with the original glassine dust jacket, which is Very Good, small chips at the tips and a larger triangular chip top edge rear panel. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Genre: Poetry, Private Press
Price $2,500.00
J. Robert Oppenheimer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1954 and 1955.
Description:
SCIENCE AND THE COMMON UNDERSTANDING, 1954, First Printing, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front end page - "for Ruth in gratitude & love Robert May - June 1954". Laid in, a single page of typing paper titled "Errata in SCIENCE AND THE COMMON UNDERSTANDING" , denoting 6 errors and a suggested improvement. Also laid in a page torn from "The New Statesman and Nation", dated Dec. 26, 1953 and an undated newspaper clipping from the same period, both concerning Oppenheimer. THE OPEN MIND, 1955, First Printing, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front end page - "for Ruth, with my love Robert Christmas 1955". Laid in, a single page , folded, 6 1/2" x 5 1/2", "The Institute for Advanced Study, Office of the Director, Princeton, New Jersey" letterhead, undated and unsigned, which reads - " Ruth Dear, Most of these you have seen at one time or another, but perhaps you would like to have them neat & tidy. The S F talk is still on its way, & I don't yet have it. There is a long letter in me crying to be written to you - it should reach you before this." Both books are Fine in Near Fine dust jackets, light rubbing and small chips at bottom edge of spine folds. Ruth Sherman Tolman was the wife of Richard C. Tolman, and she was Robert Oppenheimer's best friend and confidant. A brilliant psychologist in her own right, she helped lead the effort to make psychology a science, held a key post with the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, and established some of the first treatments for battle fatigue, which we know today as PTSD. Robert Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb", head of the Manhattan Project, and the founder of modern theoretical physics in America, became a friend of the Tolman's while in his 20s, staying at their guest house during his time spent going between Caltech and UC Berkeley. Robert and Ruth were rumored to have had a long-running affair, which was disavowed by those who knew them, but recent books have renewed that debate. It is known that Ruth destroyed many of his letters, although some have come to light. While this note doesn't settle that debate, it does, along with the inscription, indicate the intimacy that they shared. Books SIGNED AND INSCRIBED by Oppenheimer are uncommon, and with the note to Ruth, the presentation inscriptions and unique association, this collection of material is RARE.
Genre: Science, Physics, The Atom Bomb, Los Alamos
Price $6,500.00
Vannevar Bush, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1949.
Description:
First Printing. Review Copy, publisher's Review card, with tissue guard, laid in. Very Good, lacking the jacket, spine a bit faded, "Withdrawn" stamp of the Stanford University Library over the inscription. An Association Copy, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front end page - "To Fred Terman, cordial regards Vannevar Bush". Vannevar Bush's long list of accomplishments include heading the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during WWII, which included the start-up of the Manhattan Project, being the President of the Carnegie Institute, Chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( precursor of NASA ), and founder of Raytheon Company. His 1945 Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think", in which he described his "Memex" system for handling information is credited with originating the idea of hypertext and the World Wide Web. He also designed and built the differential analyzer, a machine for solving differential equations. At his death, Jerome Wiesner declared "No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush". Frederick Terman ( 1900-1982 ) is widely credited, together with Willaim Shockley, as being the "Father of Silicon Valley", Terman earned his Doctor of Science at MIT, and his advisor there was Vannevar Bush. Terman later became Dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford, and then Provost. Terman's students at Stanford included William Hewlett and David Packard. In 1951 he led the creation of Stanford Industrial Park, bringing in companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Eastman Kodak, GE, and Lockheed.
The Park later became known as Silicon Valley. The books in the Terman collection were left to the Engineering Library that bears his name by Dr. Terman upon his retirement, hence the "Withdrawn " stamp from Stanford Library. An utterly fascinating Association Copy, from "the Grand Old Man of American Science " to the "Father of Silicon Valley". Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Genre: Science, Political Science, Silicon Valley
Price $1,500.00
Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, Winter House Limited, New York, 1972.
Description:
First Edition, First Hardcover Printing of this beloved Broadway and film classic. Introduction by Michael Feingold. Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket, very faint label shadow rear panel, priced ($4.95) front flap. RARE in the First Edition, First Printing, and especially so in such lovely, collectible condition.The world premiere of GREASE was in Chicago in 1971, and the Broadway premiere followed in 1972, starring Barry Bostwick and Carole Demas. Basis for the 1978 movie starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and 2 Broadway revivals, in 1994 and 2007, in addition to countless regional theatres, summer stock, community theatres, and high school and middle school drama group productions. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Genre: Books into Film, Drama, The Theatre
Price $750.00