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The Grapes of Wrath -
John Steinbeck
1939 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition
‘They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency.’
A sharp bright and unrestored first edition of Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the Great Depression.
‘You got to have patience. Why, Tom, us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people, we go on.’
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Price HK$ 80,000
1939 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition
‘They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency.’ A sharp bright and unrestored first edition of Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the Great Depression.
‘You got to have patience. Why, Tom, us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people, we go on.’
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Price HK$ 80,000
The Wolf Woman. A Novel. -
Arthur Stringer
1928 - The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis - First Edition
The story of Dynamite Mary, brought up in the wild in Northern America and introduced into the metropolis of New York.
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Price HK$ 800
1928 - The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis - First Edition
The story of Dynamite Mary, brought up in the wild in Northern America and introduced into the metropolis of New York.
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Price HK$ 800
A Woman of Means - SIGNED -
Peter Taylor
1950 - Harcourt, New York - First Edition
‘Those who want the most fiction can give, who expect to read things they hardly knew they knew, and to experience the shock of recognition, will enjoy Peter Taylor and remember these stories.’
A lovely signed copy of Peter Taylor’s first novel, a Proustian reflection on life and family in St. Louis, Missouri during the 1920’s. In turns tragic and humorous, it is a novel that reveals its depth and craft slowly to the reader, as Quintus Dudley, our protagonist, must helplessly watch his stepmother tiptoe on the brink of insanity.
‘No description of mere mortals or events can indicate the particular kind of excitement it possesses... the excitement of being constantly on the verge of deep perceptions and deep interpretations.’ ―Robert Penn Warren, The New York Times
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Price HK$ 3,800
1950 - Harcourt, New York - First Edition
‘Those who want the most fiction can give, who expect to read things they hardly knew they knew, and to experience the shock of recognition, will enjoy Peter Taylor and remember these stories.’A lovely signed copy of Peter Taylor’s first novel, a Proustian reflection on life and family in St. Louis, Missouri during the 1920’s. In turns tragic and humorous, it is a novel that reveals its depth and craft slowly to the reader, as Quintus Dudley, our protagonist, must helplessly watch his stepmother tiptoe on the brink of insanity.
‘No description of mere mortals or events can indicate the particular kind of excitement it possesses... the excitement of being constantly on the verge of deep perceptions and deep interpretations.’ ―Robert Penn Warren, The New York Times
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Price HK$ 3,800
Open Letter San Francisco October 25, 1960 - SIGNED -
Hunter S. Thompson
1996 - White Fields Press, Kentucky - One of 118 copies signed by HST
Number 44 of 92 numbered examples of this large single sheet broadside reproducing Thompson’s iconic letter to San Francisco, it seems so much has changed but yet so little...
Initialled in large letters "H.S.T." by Thompson with a silver metallic pen in the margin next to his photograph. In fine condition, printed on glossy stock paper, measuring 66x34.5cm.
"At the end of 1960, Thompson and Semonin traveled cross-country together from New York to Seattle, and then hitchhiked down the coast to San Francisco, where Thompson settled. In a stream of consciousness letter dated 25 October 1960, Thompson writes from a bar in the Fillmore district, referring to himself as “Doctor Jazz”, who “prowls the foggy streets, seeking food. / O where is the jazz of yesteryear, the lost paycheck of my servile youth? where are the sacked liquor lockers of my Kempian days?…” Four days later he writes, “I commence walking my thumb toward Carmel & Big Sur…found slur on my ego…”
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Price HK$ 12,000
1996 - White Fields Press, Kentucky - One of 118 copies signed by HST
Number 44 of 92 numbered examples of this large single sheet broadside reproducing Thompson’s iconic letter to San Francisco, it seems so much has changed but yet so little...Initialled in large letters "H.S.T." by Thompson with a silver metallic pen in the margin next to his photograph. In fine condition, printed on glossy stock paper, measuring 66x34.5cm.
"At the end of 1960, Thompson and Semonin traveled cross-country together from New York to Seattle, and then hitchhiked down the coast to San Francisco, where Thompson settled. In a stream of consciousness letter dated 25 October 1960, Thompson writes from a bar in the Fillmore district, referring to himself as “Doctor Jazz”, who “prowls the foggy streets, seeking food. / O where is the jazz of yesteryear, the lost paycheck of my servile youth? where are the sacked liquor lockers of my Kempian days?…” Four days later he writes, “I commence walking my thumb toward Carmel & Big Sur…found slur on my ego…”
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Price HK$ 12,000
Johnny Got His Gun -
Dalton Trumbo
1939 - J. B. Lippincott Company, New York Philadelphia Toronto - First Edition
A fine copy in near fine, and thus exceptionally scarce dust jacket.
‘It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy - at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.
An immediate best-seller upon its first publication in 1939, Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of the First World War brilliantly crystallised the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era.’ [PC]
‘A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.’ – The Washington Post.
‘A terrible story, remorseless, uncompromising... this book was a shocking and violent experience.’ – Herald Tribune.
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Price HK$ 40,000
1939 - J. B. Lippincott Company, New York Philadelphia Toronto - First Edition
A fine copy in near fine, and thus exceptionally scarce dust jacket.‘It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy - at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.
An immediate best-seller upon its first publication in 1939, Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of the First World War brilliantly crystallised the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era.’ [PC]
‘A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.’ – The Washington Post.
‘A terrible story, remorseless, uncompromising... this book was a shocking and violent experience.’ – Herald Tribune.
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Price HK$ 40,000
The Day of the Locust -
Nathanael West
1939 - Random House, New York - First Edition
A very difficult first edition to find in a reasonable dust jacket with the price intact on the front flap (those without price should be treated with caution as there was an unpriced book club edition), no restoration or tape repair, with the commonly encountered toning to the spine label due to the publisher’s adhesive.
‘Admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Dashiell Hammett, and hailed as one of the “Best 100 English-language novels” by Time magazine, The Day of the Locust continues to influence American writers, artists, and culture.’ [New Directions].
‘In The Day of the Locust a young artist, Tod Hackett, arrives in LA full of dreams. But celebrity and artifice rule and he soon joins the ranks of the disenchanted that drift around the fringes of Hollywood. When he meets Faye Greener, an aspiring actress, he is intoxicated and his desperate passion explodes into rage...’ [Penguin]
‘Los Angeles has been the subject of, and setting for, many fine novels yet The Day of the Locust still feels like the single best-achieved piece of fiction the city has inspired.’ – The Los Angeles Times.
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Price HK$ 25,000
1939 - Random House, New York - First Edition
A very difficult first edition to find in a reasonable dust jacket with the price intact on the front flap (those without price should be treated with caution as there was an unpriced book club edition), no restoration or tape repair, with the commonly encountered toning to the spine label due to the publisher’s adhesive.‘Admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Dashiell Hammett, and hailed as one of the “Best 100 English-language novels” by Time magazine, The Day of the Locust continues to influence American writers, artists, and culture.’ [New Directions].
‘In The Day of the Locust a young artist, Tod Hackett, arrives in LA full of dreams. But celebrity and artifice rule and he soon joins the ranks of the disenchanted that drift around the fringes of Hollywood. When he meets Faye Greener, an aspiring actress, he is intoxicated and his desperate passion explodes into rage...’ [Penguin]
‘Los Angeles has been the subject of, and setting for, many fine novels yet The Day of the Locust still feels like the single best-achieved piece of fiction the city has inspired.’ – The Los Angeles Times.
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Price HK$ 25,000
Kiki’s Memoirs -
Kiki [Alice Prin], Ernest Hemingway (editor), Samuel Putnam (translator)
1930 - Edward W. Titus at the sign of the Black Manikin Press, Paris - First Edition in English, one of 1000 copies
A superb and apparently unopened copy of the memoirs of Kiki of Montparnasse – buxom, sensuous, strikingly made-up, uninhibited artist’s model and Parisian good-time girl in the 1920’s who was, Hemingway wrote in his introduction, ‘about as close as people get nowadays to being a Queen but that, of course, is very different from being a lady’.
Featuring an Introduction by Ernest Hemingway, and wonderfully illustrated throughout with full page reproductions of 20 paintings by Kiki and with numerous portraits of her by Tsuguharu Foujita, Kisling, Per Krogh, Hermione David and others, together with several by photographer Man Ray, whose lover she was for eight stormy years. Translated from the French by Samuel Putnam and presented here in the original glassine wrapper, the intact red wraparound band, and the publisher's original slipcase.
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Price HK$ 6,500
1930 - Edward W. Titus at the sign of the Black Manikin Press, Paris - First Edition in English, one of 1000 copies
A superb and apparently unopened copy of the memoirs of Kiki of Montparnasse – buxom, sensuous, strikingly made-up, uninhibited artist’s model and Parisian good-time girl in the 1920’s who was, Hemingway wrote in his introduction, ‘about as close as people get nowadays to being a Queen but that, of course, is very different from being a lady’.Featuring an Introduction by Ernest Hemingway, and wonderfully illustrated throughout with full page reproductions of 20 paintings by Kiki and with numerous portraits of her by Tsuguharu Foujita, Kisling, Per Krogh, Hermione David and others, together with several by photographer Man Ray, whose lover she was for eight stormy years. Translated from the French by Samuel Putnam and presented here in the original glassine wrapper, the intact red wraparound band, and the publisher's original slipcase.
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Price HK$ 6,500