Poetry
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GRAVES, Robert (ed.); HARDY, Thomas; Siegfried Sassoon; et al. The Owl.London : 1919-23
First editions, first impressions, the first number being from the very scarce signed limited issue, one of 24 unnumbered copies signed by the 18 contributors: Max Beerbohm, George Belcher, Pamela Biano, W. H. Davies, John Galsworthy, Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy, Eric Kennington, J. Masefield, Robert Nichols, Nancy Nicholson, W. Nicholson, William Orpen,... Learn More£2,750.00Stock Code: 139994
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FLINT, William Russell (illus.); HERRICK, Robert. One Hundred and Eleven Poems.London : 1955
First edition, number 529 of 445 copies bound thus; a further 105 signed copies with eight extra plates were also issued, all printed at the artist's expense. Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969), was described by Charles Wheeler, president of the Royal Academy, as an artist of "a steady hand, keen eye and gay spirit in a shaky world" (ODNB). His illustrations... Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 140576
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MAGALLON, Xavier de. L'Ombre.[Paris] : 1934
First edition thus, first printing, number XIV of 26 copies on Arches, with an original Moreau-inspired etching of angel-airman falling numbered 6/120 and signed by Pierre Pascal; from a total edition limited to 110 copies.
This poetic tribute to an airman killed in the First World War, was written by Xavier de Magallon (1866-1956), marquis... Learn More£200.00Stock Code: 140842
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DUNCAN, Isadora - DUNOYER DE SEGONZAC, André (illus.); Fernand Divoire. Dessins sur les danses d'Isadora Duncan.Paris : [c. 1910]
First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed by both authors on the verso of front wrapper "A Monsieur G. de Pawlowski, en hommage, D. Divoire; Hommage de A. D. de Segonzac". This is one of 32 copies only, this one unnumbered, of Segonzac's drawings of Isadora Duncan's dance moves. Duncan theorised a completely new form of dance that originated... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 140825
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SASSOON, Siegfried. Something About Myself.Worcester : 1966
First edition, first impression, printed on the occasion of the author's 80th birthday from the manuscript of More Poems which Sassoon wrote in 1897, when he was 11 years old, about his cat. Learn More£225.00Stock Code: 140753
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PATCHEN, Kenneth & Charles Mingus. The Living Theatre Presents - The Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop with Kenneth Patchen.New York : 1959
"In the last two weeks of March 1959, the jazz bassist Charlie Mingus and the beat poet Kenneth Patchen performed on stage together at the Living Theatre in New York City. Mingus and his band improvised to jazz themes at the back, while Patchen read simultaneously from his poetry at the front. The Patchen/Mingus performances marked the climax of the... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 130511
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FENTON, James. Children In Exile.Edinburgh : 1983
First edition, first impression. Learn More£50.00Stock Code: 140847
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FENTON, James. The Memory of War.Edinburgh : 1982
First edition, first impression. Signed by Fenton on the title page. With a flyer from the Poetry Book Society loosely inserted. Learn More£60.00Stock Code: 140809
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GRAVES, Robert. No More Ghosts.London : 1940
First edition, first impression. Learn More£85.00Stock Code: 140813
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BAUMANN, Gustave (illus.); BANNING, Kendall. Pirates! or, The Cruise of the Black Revenge.Chicago : 1918
First trade edition, first printing, of this collection of 13 poems and accompanying woodcuts, following the limited edition of 525 copies in a larger format on handmade paper published by the Brothers of the Book in 1916.
The publisher, Laurence Woodworth was the scrivener for the Brothers of the Book, a small private press "made up of those... Learn More£250.00Stock Code: 140322
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YEATS, W. B. The Variorum Edition of the Poems.New York : 1957
Signed limited edition, number 381 of 825 copies signed by Yeats, and issued posthumously. The limitation sheets were signed by the author before his death in 1939, and retained by the publisher until the publication of this edition, which was deferred until after the war.
Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 112375
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ACKROYD, Peter; Kevin Stratford; Graham Walker. The Works.No place : [c. 1970]-71-73
First editions, first impressions, of these three early Ackroyd publications.
The Works is Ackroyd's first appearance in print, Ouch is his first solo publication, and London Lickpenny, one of 500 copies only, was his second solo publication. All three works come from the library of Martin S. Golding, librarian and director of English studies... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 140689
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WHITMAN, Walt. Ode a la France.Paris : 1917
First separate edition, first printing, one of 556 copies only, of this translation of Whitman's poem "O Star of France" dated 1870-71, which was first published in Leaves of Grass. Combet-Descombes's illustrations evoke the landscapes of the war-torn country after the Franco-Prussian War of July 1870 - May 1871, which marked the end of French hegemony... Learn More£325.00Stock Code: 140650
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DICKEY, James. The Zodiac.Bloomfield Hills, MI : 1976
First edition, number 39 of 61 copies signed by the author with a single leaf of the typescript working draft bound in, Dickey's manuscript corrections in ink. A trade issue was released by Doubleday later in the same year. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 140558
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KELMSCOTT PRESS: SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles. Atalanta in Calydon:Hammersmith : 1894
First Kelmscott edition, one of 250 copies on paper; a further 8 copies printed on vellum were also issued. Swinburne was a warm admirer of the Kelmscott Press books, and "when Atalanta (which was first published in 1865) was reprinted by Morris, Swinburne wrote to him that it was 'certainly one of the loveliest examples of even your incomparable press'"... Learn More£4,000.00Stock Code: 140418
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SCHUYLER, James, & Helena Hughes. Collab.New York : 1969
First edition, limited issue, one of 200 unnumbered copies. Learn More£150.00Stock Code: 140172
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WHITE, Gleeson, & Charles Shannon, eds. The Pageant.London : 1896-7
First editions, first impressions. All published of a typically unfeasible 1890s venture, an artistic and literary collaboration between the "Rhymers' Club" decadents and the pre-Raphaelite aesthetes, and others, including work by Max Beerbohm, Robert Bridges, Edward Burne Jones, Charles Conder, Walter Crane, Austin Dobson, Ernest Dowson, Richard Garnett,... Learn More£400.00Stock Code: 140450
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SCHUYLER, James. A Sun Cab.New York : 1972
First edition, limitied issue, one of 300 unnumbered copies, of which 26 were lettered A-Z and signed by the poet and the artist. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 140170
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GONNE, Maud, (illus.); YOUNG, Ella. Celtic Wonder-Tales.Dublin : 1910
First edition, first impression, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the original front free endpaper "To John Varian, With Greeting from Ella Young", and with over ten annotations in ink by Young.
The recipient, John Osborne Varian (1863-1931), was an Irish-American poet and a leader within the theosophist utopian community of Halcyon,... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 139842
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WALLER, John, et al. The Cherwell, Vol. LIX, No. 7.1940
First edition, sole impression, John Waller's own copy, inscribed and double signed by him on the front cover "John Waller My copy. Ruth Douglas published my poems and he was the greatest illegible... John Waller". John Waller was an English author, poet and journalist, and a member of the Cairo poets during the Second World War Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 140314
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BUTLER, Samuel. Hudibras, A Poem.London : 1819
First edition thus with Clarke's illustrations, and the extra matter gathered together from Grey, Hume, Smollett, Fox and others, handsomely bound. Samuel Butler's Hudibras is a satiric poem on the English Civil War, written in Chaucerian couplets and published 1663-78. Voltaire, who translated a condensed version of Hudibras into French, noted that... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 140367
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CUMMINGS, E. E. Eimi.New York : 1933
First edition, signed limited issue, number 7 of 1,381 copies signed by the author, additionally inscribed "For H.W. from EEC. April 3".
Eimi was a travelogue, in Cummings's signature abstract prose, of his visit to the Soviet Union in 1931. As explained on the limitation page, the unusual limitation was apparently simply a reflection of the... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 138117
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DOUGLAS, Lord Alfred. Sonnets.London : 1935
First edition, first impression. John Heygate's copy, with his ownership inscription in ink on the front free endpaper. John Edward Nourse Heygate, 4th Baronet (19031976) was a Northern Irish journalist and novelist, perhaps best known for his affair with Evelyn Gardner while she was still married to Evelyn Waugh. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 140397
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PINTER, Harold. The Birthday Party.London : 1959
First edition, first impression, signed by the author on the title page. The Birthday Party was Pinter's first full-length play, "which, after a short, highly successful provincial tour, opened at the Lyric Hammersmith on 19 May 1958 but closed at the end of the week" (ODNB). Learn More£2,500.00Stock Code: 140336
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SPENDER, Stephen. Twenty Poems.Oxford : [1930]
First edition, limited issue, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the second blank, "To Elizabeth, with love from Stephen. June 11th". From a total edition of 135 copies, of which 75 copies were numbered and signed. This, the author's second book, was published while Spender was a student at Oxford: it was well received and prompted T. S.... Learn More£600.00Stock Code: 140052
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UNZER, Johanna Charlotte. Versuchin sittlichen und zärtlichen Gedichten.[Leipzig : 1754
First edition of a beautifully produced work of verse, printed by the celebrated German typographer Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf.
"The only significant German woman writer of 'anacreontic poetry'", Johanna Charlotte Unzer (1724/25-1782) published two early books of verse: the present, a set of contemplative poems which "include illuminating... Learn More£575.00Stock Code: 137490
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PRIDEAUX, Walter. Poems of Chivalry, Faery, and The Olden Time.London : 1840
First and only edition of this unusually early example of this genre, anticipating Tennyson's Arthurian poetry by over a decade. Possibly a family copy, with the ink ownership inscription "W. de C. Prideaux" to the half-title in a later hand, seemingly the author of Notes on Mediaeval Enamelled Armorial Horse Trappings, with Reference to a Weymouth... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 139881
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RENAN, Ernest. Poetry of the Celtic Races, and Other Essays.London : [1897]
First edition in English, this book was first published in France in 1854 as "La poésie des races celtiques". Ernest Renan (1823-1892) is best known for his 1863 Vie de Jésus, which was an immediate success, but " it is Renan's approach to the subject and his beautiful prose that gave it lasting eminence" (PMM 352).
This copy belonged to the... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 139627
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LE DANTEC, Yves-Gerard. Nouveaux Sonnets Ouraniens.Paris : 1944
First edition, limited issue, number 83 of 90 copies printed on vellum, from a total edition of 100 copies, signed by the artist below the frontispiece. Andre Marchand (1907-1997) was a French painter and one of the founding members of the Salon de Mai. Learn More£100.00Stock Code: 140046
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![Focus One [together with] Focus Two.](https://d3dzzbbvj9im7s.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/cache/ae0834d12b7cf129fc73bcc000ea526a/1/4/140057.jpg)
PEARSE, Andrew, & Balachandra Rajan. Focus One [together with] Focus Two.London : 1945 & 1946
First editions, first impressions. Focus was a serial miscellany concerned with contemporary writing: Focus One presents a wide selection of poems and essays, while Focus Two is primarily concerned with the realist novel in the 1930s. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 140057
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AMIS, Kingsley. A Frame of MindReading : 1953
First edition, limited issue, number 116 of 150 copies. This was the second of Amis's published books, and the second collection of his poetry. Learn More£125.00Stock Code: 140079
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PICKARD, Tom. High on the Walls.London : 1967
First edition, first impression, of the author's first published book of poetry. Learn More£75.00Stock Code: 140004
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PREWETT, Frank. Poems.Richmond, London : [1921]
First edition, first impression, of this notably uncommon edition, handset by Virginia Woolf for the Hogarth Press. The Canadian poet Frank James Prewett (1893-1962) surfaced as a poet of the First World War, meeting Sassoon at Craiglockhart War Hospital. This is his first published collection of verse and "contains many of the poet's finest trench... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 139956
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THOMAS, Edward. Poems.London : 1917
First edition, first impression, an an exceptional example, of Thomas's first regularly published book of poems, issued after his death at Arras on Easter Monday 1917. This is one of 1,050 copies printed, half of which were issued by Selwyn & Blound in the UK, and half by Henry Holt in America. The book is dedicated to Robert Frost, who had encouraged... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 128257
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YEATS, W. B. The Poems.London : 1949
First and signed limited edition, number 182 of 375 copies signed by the author to the verso of the half-title, published by Macmillan as a Definitive Edition of his work, as stated in the prospectus, which is not found with this copy. The edition was personally overseen by Yeats's widow, George, the publisher Harold Macmillan, and the publisher's reader... Learn More£2,750.00Stock Code: 131846
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GRAVES, Robert. Poems 1929.London : 1929
First and signed limited edition, first impression, number 170 of 225 copies, signed by the author. Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 122147
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STEVENS, Wallace. Ideas of Order.New York : 1935
First and limited edition, signed by Stevens; this one of just 10 copies for review and marked "out of series", from a total edition of 165.
An excellent association copy: with the pencilled ownership inscription of F. O. Matthiessen on the front free endpaper and some pencilled underlings and occasional marginal notation. F. O. Matthiessen... Learn More£3,750.00Stock Code: 72150
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UPDIKE, John. The Angels.Pensacola : 1968
First and sole edition, one of 150 copies. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author "for Herb Yellin something of an angel himself John" on the half title. Herb Yellin (1935-2014) was a publisher and founder of the Lord John Press, who published handsome signed limited editions for a number of high-profile authors, including Stephen King, Ray Bradbury,... Learn More£580.00Stock Code: 128337
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RICH, Adrienne Cecile. A Change of World.New Haven, CT : 1951
First edition, first printing, with the ownership inscription of fellow poet Anthony Thwaite, dated "London 1953", to the front free endpaper. Thwaite (b. 1930) is a poet, literary critic, and notably the literary executor for Philip Larkin. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and, in 1953, whilst still an undergraduate and a year after Rich herself... Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 139711
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SASSOON, Siegfried. The War Poems.London : 1919
First edition, first impression. The volume includes 63 poems of the war, most written while Sassoon was in hospital recovering from his injuries. "Sassoon's savagely realistic and compassionate war poems had established his stature as a fully fledged poet, and despite all his later prose and verse, and his growing aversion to the label, it was mainly... Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 135908
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CAPINAUD, [Antoine]. Hommage aux mânes de Mirabeau.Lyon : 1791
First and only edition of this scarce verse tribute to Mirabeau. WorldCat records just two copies in institutions worldwide, in Harvard and BM Lyon. Learn More£300.00Stock Code: 126494
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UPDIKE, John. Three Stories.New York : 2002
First edition, number 183 of 250 copies only signed by Updike, Cook, and the publisher, Luke Ives Pontifell. Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 139591
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DANTE ALIGHIERI; PHILLIPS, Tom, illus. & trans. Dante's Inferno.London : 1985
First trade edition of Phillips's Dante, this number 67 of 100 special copies containing a loose signed and numbered Phillips screenprint, additionally signed on the limitation page, and slipcased. This is the signed limited issue of the "popular edition" (jacket front flap), following the 180 copies of the original edition produced at the Talfourd... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 139494
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PAUL, Evelyn. Aucassin and Nicolete.London : [1917]
First Evelyn Paul edition, deluxe signed limited issue, number 117 of 125 copies signed by the illuminator Evelyn Paul, and bound in decorated full vellum. Paul's designs are based on the decoration of mediaeval manuscripts, a fine accompaniment for Michael West's translation of the French tale, composed around the late 12th to early 13th century. Learn More£500.00Stock Code: 139446
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WILDE, Oscar; VASSOS, John (illus.) The Ballad of Reading Gaol.New York : 1930
Early printing of John Vassos's illustrated Ballad of Reading Gaol, signed on the half title by the illustrator, and in excellent condition with the jacket and glassine. John Vassos (1898-1985) was an American industrial and graphic designer famous for designing the first commercially available television sets and many other popular products and logos.... Learn More£400.00Stock Code: 139448
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BURNS, Robert. The Works.Edinburgh : 1877-9
First William Scott Douglas edition, here handsomely bound and abundantly extra-illustrated, described by ODNB as a "splendid, six-volume library edition. The poems in this edition are arranged chronologically, and while it was the most sumptuous yet published it was also the most complete and correct regarding both text and notes".
Douglas... Learn More£3,000.00Stock Code: 139102
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STRICKLAND, Agnes. The Seven Ages of Woman, and Other Poems.London : 1827
First edition, presentation copy from the author's sister, inscribed on the half-title "To Mrs Cautley with Jane M Strickland's love", later inscribed on the half-title verso, "To Miss G. F. J. Foster with compliments from Andrew J Cutler", with the ownership signature of Ida S. Cutler to the title page.
The Seven Ages of Woman is Agnes Strickland's... Learn More£550.00Stock Code: 138335
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HALLIWELL, James Orchard. Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales:London : 1849
First edition of this important little work; scarce in commerce. James Orchard Halliwell (later Halliwell-Philipps, 1820-1889), antiquary and literary scholar, co-founder of both the Percy and Shakespeare Societies, is one of the most significant figures in the codification of English nursery rhymes. Popular Rhymes was a sequel to his groundbreaking... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 136692
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BACON, Mary Ann. The Legend of St. Bernard.Norwich : [1840]
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, "Mrs Howlett from her affectionate friend MAB". We can trace ten copies in institutions worldwide, just one of those a presentation copy, inscribed from the author's father (see below).
The little-known British poet Mary Ann Bacon (fl. 1839-1870, d. 1875) was born into... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 136220
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MEREDITH, George. Poems.London : [1851]
First edition of the author's first book, the publication of which he funded himself. Though he later disowned the work, it was praised at the time by both Tennyson and Charles Kingsley. Learn More£825.00Stock Code: 130288
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CRANE, Stephen. The Black Riders and Other Lines.Boston : 1895
First edition, deluxe issue, one of 50 copies printed in green on japon. The Black Riders is first book of poetry by Stephen Crane (1871-1900), famous for his novels such as his acclaimed Civil War tale The Red Badge of Courage, published in the same year as this collection. Crane was a prolific writer of poetry, though only in private at first, writing... Learn More£3,750.00Stock Code: 117295
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HODGSON, William Hope. The Calling of the Sea.London : [1920]
First edition, first impression. This poetry collection was published posthumously by Hodgson's widow, Betty ("Bessie") Gertrude Farnworth; Hodgson died in the First World War, killed by an artillery shell at Ypres on 17 April, 1918. Learn More£1,250.00Stock Code: 103030
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SASSOON, Siegfried. The Old Huntsman and Other Poems.London : 1917
First edition, first impression, in the very scarce jacket, of Sassoon's first collection of war poetry. Learn More£2,250.00Stock Code: 138949
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BLAKE, William. Milton: A Poem.Clairvaux : 1967
First edition thus, copy S of 26 lettered copies reserved for Lessing J. Rosenwald, the Library of Congress, the Trustees of the William Blake Trust and the Publishers, containing an original guide-sheet and stencil, and a set of hand-coloured plates showing progressive stages in the stencil work, as well as colour collotype proofs, from a total edition... Learn More£3,750.00Stock Code: 115042
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WHITMAN, Walt. Leaves of Grass.San Francisco : 1930
First Grabhorn Press edition, number 371 of 400 copies. The largest undertaking of the Grabhorn Press, arguably their finest production, and one of the great examples of American fine printing, using as its text Whitman's final edition of Leaves of Grass, published shortly before his death. Learn More£3,000.00Stock Code: 138793
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ISAAC, Frederick Simeon? Odds and Ends in Prose and Verse.London : 1908
First and only edition. A truly sumptuous piece of private publishing, produced as a gift for the author's children and grandchildren, handsomely printed at the Chiswick Press and finely bound by an unnamed binder of real quality.
Among the varied pieces is "A Dream, by One who Dreamt It", a prose fantasy, conceived at the time of the Dreyfus... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 122897
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APOLLINAIRE, Guillaume - ROUVEYRE, André. Apollinaire filmé en 1914.Lanzac : 1944
First and only edition, number 93 of 115 copies on papier Vélin Madagascar. The short film, or succession of photographs, were taken on 2 August 1914 as Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) on the left, and his friend the artist André Rouveyre (1879-1962), had just returned to Paris and were on their way to the Comœdia's offices to deliver their work.... Learn More£750.00Stock Code: 138667
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LEVY, D. A. Cleveland undercovers.Cleveland : 1966
First edition, one of 500 copies printed. Levy (1942-1968) was a leading figure in the countercultural movement known as the Cleveland Mimeograph Revolution. His productions, being hand-assembled with small print runs, now survive in relatively small numbers. His introduction declares "to my knowledge this poem is the first poem of any length to be... Learn More£275.00Stock Code: 138639
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LEVY, D. A. Cleveland undercovers.Cleveland : 1966
First edition, this one of 65 special copies "bound with freak covers by the author" (each being thus unique, this one incorporating old maps of Ohio, a striking photograph of two Native Americans, and newsprint collage), from a total edition of 500. This copy is inscribed on the title page, "many thanks, d. a. levy". Levy (1942-1968) was a leading... Learn More£1,750.00Stock Code: 138636
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JOHNSON, Samuel. A Miscellany of Poems by Several Hands.Oxford : 1731
First and sole edition, celebrated for including Samuel Johnson's first appearance in print and the mention of him in the preface as "a Commoner of Pembroke-College in Oxford". Johnson spent only thirteen months at Pembroke (October 1728 to December 1729), forced to leave through financial constraints. His stay may have been short but the nineteen-year... Learn More£3,500.00Stock Code: 125411
