Our latest print catalogue is now available via our website. Catalogue 138 features recent acquisitions that range from works by fine presses and illustrated books, to a few fine bindings and fore-edge paintings, first editions, and juvenalia. Highlights include:
Checkerboard. Honolulu, Punahou Service, 1942. Folding tapa-covered boards containing a hand-cut checkerboard with two small manila envelopes pasted on opposite sides, containing thirteen red and yellow plastic disks. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the acting Dean of Girls at Punahou School -- the largest independent college preparatory school in the United States and alma mater of President Barack Obama -- re-structured Punahou Service, an extant arts and crafts program, to aid in the war effort. The students produced handmade items for soldiers, the most popular of which "was a cigar box 'pastime kit' containing a crossword puzzle, a file case, pad and pencil, a folder, a deck of cards, and small cribbage and checker boards."...[more]
Gedichte, Entwürfe zu Gedichten und Bruchstücke aus den Jahren MDCCXCVI-MDCCCIV, by Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin. Aurora, NY, and Lexington, KY, Stamperia del Santuccio, 1949. One of 51 copies. Known as Victor Hammer's "American masterpiece," Hölderlin's Gedichte represents a near complete collection of the poet's work between the years 1796 and 1804, printed in the original German as Hammer believed was the proper way to do the poems full justice. Illustrated with a single brass-plate engraving by Hammer showing the poet in the pose of the Seer, a likeness of Hölderlin taken from a 1792 pastel drawing of him by F. C. Hiemer...[more]
Harlequin and Mother Goose: Or The Golden Egg. London, Laurie & Whittle, 1807. Framed engraved writing sheet with a mirror over the blank area in the center usually reserved for examples of penmanship. The mirror is near-contemporary to the writing sheet, and together they create an attractive piece that perhaps could have served as decoration in a child's room. The ten hand-colored illustrations bordering the mirror depict the pantomime of Harlequin and Mother Goose or, the Golden Egg, featuring the characters of the Harlequinade...[more]
The Harvard Advocate, illustrated by Edward Gorey. Cambridge, MA, Advocate House, 1950. The cover illustration by Edward Gorey shows two Mr. Earbrass-style characters throwing sticks at two hooded heads on pikes. This constitutes Gorey's first published appearance as an illustrator. This issue is also remarkable for the appearance of three pieces by Gorey's Harvard roommate, Frank O'Hara: two poems and a short prose work entitled "Late Adventure." This is O'Hara's third print appearance, and it predates his landmark first book, A City Winter, by two years...[more]
Petites Fleurs de Saint François d'Assise. Paris, Jacques Beltrand, 1913. One of 120 copies. With 74 color wood engravings, historiated borders, initials, and paraphs by Marice Denis, one of the co-founders of Les Nabis, a relatively short-lived artistic movement aligned with Symbolism. Bound by Georges Mercier in full dark brown morocco with an elaborate neo-Gothic motif on both panels. This is noted art critic Lucien Henraux's copy, as indicated on the colophon page...[more]
Romola. London, Smith, Elder & Co, 1880. One of 1,000 numbered copies comprising a deluxe edition. Illustrated with twenty-four engraved plates by Sir Frederick Leighton and numerous smaller vignettes. Each volume features three fore-edge paintings in the style typical of Thomas & John Fazakerley: in each, a larger central painting is flanked by two smaller, atmospheric paintings, all of which are directly related to Eliot's novel. These paintings, which characteristically do not require fanning to view, are further heightened by Fazakerley's trademark gauffered strapwork, which essentially frames each painting, giving it further emphasis. This strapwork carries across the three edges of the text block...[more]
The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf. New York, The Viking Press, 1936. Octavo. First edition, signed by the author on the title page. With full-page black & white drawings by Robert Lawson on each recto page illustrating text on the opposite page. The story of Ferdinand the bull, who would rather sit under his favorite cork tree and smell flowers than battle a matador in the bull fighting ring, was an immensely popular children's book in the 1930s and to this day. Fine in original dust jacket...[more]
The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare. Weimar, Cranach Press, 1930. One of fifteen copies on Imperial Japanese paper, with an extra suite of fifty-three loose proofs initialed in pencil by the artist, Edward Gordon Craig...[more]
All items in the catalogue are photographed and available to view on our website here. To request a print version of the catalogue, contact us via email or through our website.
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