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Sister Carrie -
Theodore Dreiser, Reginald Marsh (illustrator)
1939 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Marsh, Number 1194 of 1500 copies.
A handsomely bound limited edition, signed by the illustrator, with an introduction by Burton Rascoe and illustrated throughout from crayon drawings by Reginald Marsh
Banned on publication for its questionable morals, Sister Carrie is the great American novel of seduction, a masterpiece of insight into appetite and innocence.
Long before she was seduced by the cautious and ordinary man whose life she would unravel with no malice and only intermittent interest, the young Carrie Meeber was seduced by the promise of the city–its vitality and reckless possibility, the thrill of material luxury, and the spectacle of power and industry.
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time.
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Price HK$ 4,000
1939 - The Limited Editions Club, New York - First Edition illustrated by Marsh, Number 1194 of 1500 copies.
A handsomely bound limited edition, signed by the illustrator, with an introduction by Burton Rascoe and illustrated throughout from crayon drawings by Reginald MarshBanned on publication for its questionable morals, Sister Carrie is the great American novel of seduction, a masterpiece of insight into appetite and innocence.
Long before she was seduced by the cautious and ordinary man whose life she would unravel with no malice and only intermittent interest, the young Carrie Meeber was seduced by the promise of the city–its vitality and reckless possibility, the thrill of material luxury, and the spectacle of power and industry.
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time.
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Price HK$ 4,000
Geek Love - Signed -
Katherine Dunn
1989 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
Signed and fine first edition of this classic cult novel. The story of an enterprising American family who, according to sound free market principles, decide to raise their own freakshow by breeding their own mutants – thereby cutting costs. In a splendid nod to the book's contents, designer Chip Kidd has given Knopf's logo of the "coursing Borzoi" 3 forelegs on the jacket spine above publisher's imprint.
When Katherine Dunn’s novel “Geek Love” became Sonny Mehta’s first purchase as editor-in-chief at Knopf, she became famous in the literary world, at the age of forty-three, after years of obscurity. The book is about what happens after the circus impresario Aloysius Binewski feeds “cocaine, amphetamines, and arsenic” to his repeatedly pregnant wife, a retired geek named Crystal Lil, to genetically engineer a family of circus freaks.
“Geek Love” is historically beloved by dark and eccentric artists, many of whom are famous. Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Flea, and the Monty Pythonite Terry Gilliam were all outspoken fans. According to Gilliam, Johnny Depp wanted to play the book’s most interesting character, Arturo the Aqua Boy, so badly that he tried to get Gilliam to make “Geek Love” into a movie—Tim Burton ended up buying the rights. The book was so resonant for Gilliam that as recently as 2010 he was still trying to adapt the novel, this time as a West End stage play.’ - Eric Rosenblum, New Yorker, 1st December 2022.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1989 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
Signed and fine first edition of this classic cult novel. The story of an enterprising American family who, according to sound free market principles, decide to raise their own freakshow by breeding their own mutants – thereby cutting costs. In a splendid nod to the book's contents, designer Chip Kidd has given Knopf's logo of the "coursing Borzoi" 3 forelegs on the jacket spine above publisher's imprint.When Katherine Dunn’s novel “Geek Love” became Sonny Mehta’s first purchase as editor-in-chief at Knopf, she became famous in the literary world, at the age of forty-three, after years of obscurity. The book is about what happens after the circus impresario Aloysius Binewski feeds “cocaine, amphetamines, and arsenic” to his repeatedly pregnant wife, a retired geek named Crystal Lil, to genetically engineer a family of circus freaks.
“Geek Love” is historically beloved by dark and eccentric artists, many of whom are famous. Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Flea, and the Monty Pythonite Terry Gilliam were all outspoken fans. According to Gilliam, Johnny Depp wanted to play the book’s most interesting character, Arturo the Aqua Boy, so badly that he tried to get Gilliam to make “Geek Love” into a movie—Tim Burton ended up buying the rights. The book was so resonant for Gilliam that as recently as 2010 he was still trying to adapt the novel, this time as a West End stage play.’ - Eric Rosenblum, New Yorker, 1st December 2022.
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Price HK$ 6,000
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -
Dave Eggers
2000 - Simon and Schuster, New York - First Edition
A fine first edition of the 1990’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’.
Egger’s first novel. After reading the ‘Rules and Suggestions For Enjoyment of This Book’, and then the preface, not to mention the copyright details and half title stating ‘This Was Uncalled For’ you are only partially prepared for this Heartbreaking Work, but who knows what lurks inside this man’s mind.
Brilliantly titled to ensure that ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ was the first statement made at the beginning of any book review.
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Price HK$ 900
2000 - Simon and Schuster, New York - First Edition
A fine first edition of the 1990’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’.Egger’s first novel. After reading the ‘Rules and Suggestions For Enjoyment of This Book’, and then the preface, not to mention the copyright details and half title stating ‘This Was Uncalled For’ you are only partially prepared for this Heartbreaking Work, but who knows what lurks inside this man’s mind.
Brilliantly titled to ensure that ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ was the first statement made at the beginning of any book review.
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Price HK$ 900
A Fan's Notes - Inscribed -
Frederick Exley
1968 - Harper &, New York - First Edition
Inscribed ‘Read in good “mental health”’ by Exley to renowned New York professor and psychologist and psychoanalyst Avrum Ben-Avi, and then gifted by a Sarah P. I. to ABA ‘for helping me end my “journey on a davenport”’ which refers to Exley’s six months on the sofa at his mother’s house at the end of which he was consigned to a mental hospital.
Exley's cult classic, a fictional memoir based on the author's real struggle, complicated by alcohol abuse and mental illness, to avoid being a lifelong "loser." Son of a fabled high school athlete in Watertown, NY, but with no interest in athletics in a sports-rabid town, Exley's only joy was in watching, through an alcoholic haze, the NY Giants on television on Sunday afternoons at a local bar. A Giants' victory would seem to justify, for a few hours, his misshapen life. In between football games, drinking bouts, shock treatments and insulin therapy, Exley would venture out into the world to play at being a normal, successful, young man on-the-go only to find each attempt driving him toward insanity again bringing him to the conclusion he is not a hero but merely a fan.
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Price HK$ 4,500
1968 - Harper &, New York - First Edition
Inscribed ‘Read in good “mental health”’ by Exley to renowned New York professor and psychologist and psychoanalyst Avrum Ben-Avi, and then gifted by a Sarah P. I. to ABA ‘for helping me end my “journey on a davenport”’ which refers to Exley’s six months on the sofa at his mother’s house at the end of which he was consigned to a mental hospital.Exley's cult classic, a fictional memoir based on the author's real struggle, complicated by alcohol abuse and mental illness, to avoid being a lifelong "loser." Son of a fabled high school athlete in Watertown, NY, but with no interest in athletics in a sports-rabid town, Exley's only joy was in watching, through an alcoholic haze, the NY Giants on television on Sunday afternoons at a local bar. A Giants' victory would seem to justify, for a few hours, his misshapen life. In between football games, drinking bouts, shock treatments and insulin therapy, Exley would venture out into the world to play at being a normal, successful, young man on-the-go only to find each attempt driving him toward insanity again bringing him to the conclusion he is not a hero but merely a fan.
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Price HK$ 4,500
The Great Gatsby -
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Graves (illustrator)
1984 - The Arion Press, San Francisco - One of 400 copies, signed by Graves
‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’
Exquisitely produced deluxe limited edition of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now considered a landmark of 20th century fiction, and the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.
A collaboration between Andrew Hoyem of the Arion Press and the great American post-modernist architect and designer Michael Graves (1934-2015), a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group, and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years.
One of 400 copies, signed by Graves who provides ninety-seven drawings from his interpretation of the novel, including its architectural backdrop, the landscape, gardens, buildings, furnishing, vehicles and any other objects that struck his fancy, such as the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses that are fixtures in the story. The slipcase displays a low relief of a site plan for Graves’ envisioning of Gatsby’s Estate.
Laid-in to the slipcase is a copy of Michael Graves draws Gatsby which provides the background, a brief biography of Graves, and description of the production itself, and the regular prospectus letter.
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Price HK$ 16,000
1984 - The Arion Press, San Francisco - One of 400 copies, signed by Graves
‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’Exquisitely produced deluxe limited edition of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now considered a landmark of 20th century fiction, and the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.
A collaboration between Andrew Hoyem of the Arion Press and the great American post-modernist architect and designer Michael Graves (1934-2015), a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group, and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years.
One of 400 copies, signed by Graves who provides ninety-seven drawings from his interpretation of the novel, including its architectural backdrop, the landscape, gardens, buildings, furnishing, vehicles and any other objects that struck his fancy, such as the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses that are fixtures in the story. The slipcase displays a low relief of a site plan for Graves’ envisioning of Gatsby’s Estate.
Laid-in to the slipcase is a copy of Michael Graves draws Gatsby which provides the background, a brief biography of Graves, and description of the production itself, and the regular prospectus letter.
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Price HK$ 16,000
The Cubical City -
Janet Flanner (Gen
1926 - G.P. Putnam&rsquo, New York &ndash - First Edition
First edition of the author’s only novel a bright sharp example in the rare dust jacket.
An extraordinary—and memorable—glimpse of the young artist in New York during the Jazz Age, and ‘considered by literary scholars to be one of the first examples of modernist lesbian literature’.
‘From the 1920s to the 1970s, Janet Flanner kept Americans abreast of the goings-on in Paris with a biweekly New Yorker column written under the name Genêt. But before she became one of the country’s most famous expats, she lived among the artists and writers of the Algonquin Round Table. Flanner shares a vivid depiction of the New York she knew in this tale of a young woman’s self-discovery.
Having left Ohio in search of liberation, Delia Poole struggles to find her place in the big city. After getting work as a costume designer for musical revues, she and her dear friend Nancy are finally finding happiness on their own terms. But nothing is simple. From her adoring suitor, Paul, to her widowed mother’s decision to move to New York, Delia must grapple with expectations, responsibilities, and her own uncertainty.
The Cubical City is Janet Flanner’s only published novel. Though homosexuality is never overtly expressed, it is considered by literary scholars to be one of the first examples of modernist lesbian literature’ [Open Road Media]
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Price HK$ 17,000
1926 - G.P. Putnam&rsquo, New York &ndash - First Edition
First edition of the author’s only novel a bright sharp example in the rare dust jacket.An extraordinary—and memorable—glimpse of the young artist in New York during the Jazz Age, and ‘considered by literary scholars to be one of the first examples of modernist lesbian literature’.
‘From the 1920s to the 1970s, Janet Flanner kept Americans abreast of the goings-on in Paris with a biweekly New Yorker column written under the name Genêt. But before she became one of the country’s most famous expats, she lived among the artists and writers of the Algonquin Round Table. Flanner shares a vivid depiction of the New York she knew in this tale of a young woman’s self-discovery.
Having left Ohio in search of liberation, Delia Poole struggles to find her place in the big city. After getting work as a costume designer for musical revues, she and her dear friend Nancy are finally finding happiness on their own terms. But nothing is simple. From her adoring suitor, Paul, to her widowed mother’s decision to move to New York, Delia must grapple with expectations, responsibilities, and her own uncertainty.
The Cubical City is Janet Flanner’s only published novel. Though homosexuality is never overtly expressed, it is considered by literary scholars to be one of the first examples of modernist lesbian literature’ [Open Road Media]
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Price HK$ 17,000
JR - Signed -
William Gaddis
1975 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
First edition, signed.
‘At the center of J R is J R Vansant, a very average sixth grader from Long Island with torn sneakers, a runny nose, and a juvenile fascination with junk-mail get-rich-quick offers. Responding to one, he sees a small return; soon, he is running a paper empire out of a phone booth in the school hallway. Everyone from the school staff to the municipal government to the squabbling heirs of a player-piano company to the titans of Wall Street and the politicians in Washington will be caught up in the endlessly ballooning bubble of the J R Family of Companies.
Winner of the National Book Award in 1976, J R is an appallingly funny and all-too-prophetic depiction of America’s romance with finance. It is also a book about suburban development and urban decay, divorce proceedings and disputed wills, the crumbling facade of Western civilization and the impossible demands of love and art, with characters ranging from the earnest young composer Edward Bast to the berserk publicist Davidoff. Told almost entirely through dialogue, William Gaddis’s novel is both a literary tour de force and an unsurpassed reckoning with the way we live now.’ – New York Review of Books.
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Price HK$ 8,000
1975 - Alfred A. Knopf, New York - First Edition
First edition, signed.‘At the center of J R is J R Vansant, a very average sixth grader from Long Island with torn sneakers, a runny nose, and a juvenile fascination with junk-mail get-rich-quick offers. Responding to one, he sees a small return; soon, he is running a paper empire out of a phone booth in the school hallway. Everyone from the school staff to the municipal government to the squabbling heirs of a player-piano company to the titans of Wall Street and the politicians in Washington will be caught up in the endlessly ballooning bubble of the J R Family of Companies.
Winner of the National Book Award in 1976, J R is an appallingly funny and all-too-prophetic depiction of America’s romance with finance. It is also a book about suburban development and urban decay, divorce proceedings and disputed wills, the crumbling facade of Western civilization and the impossible demands of love and art, with characters ranging from the earnest young composer Edward Bast to the berserk publicist Davidoff. Told almost entirely through dialogue, William Gaddis’s novel is both a literary tour de force and an unsurpassed reckoning with the way we live now.’ – New York Review of Books.
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Price HK$ 8,000
Howl and Other Poems -
Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams (introduction)
1956 - City Lights Pocket Bookshop, San Francisco - First Edition, First Printing
Nice example of Ginsberg's revolutionary poem, which had been seized by the U.S. Collector of Customs Chester MacPhee soon after publication, setting off one of the most important episodes in the battle for freedom of the press, and against censorship.
This is the first printing, with the dedication to Lucien Carr still present, a period after "Harlem" on the rear cover, and "75 cents" lettered in light blue on rear cover.
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,’
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Price HK$ 32,000
1956 - City Lights Pocket Bookshop, San Francisco - First Edition, First Printing
Nice example of Ginsberg's revolutionary poem, which had been seized by the U.S. Collector of Customs Chester MacPhee soon after publication, setting off one of the most important episodes in the battle for freedom of the press, and against censorship.This is the first printing, with the dedication to Lucien Carr still present, a period after "Harlem" on the rear cover, and "75 cents" lettered in light blue on rear cover.
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,’
More details
Price HK$ 32,000