
The Accidental Bookseller
Specializing in Uncommon Copies of Interesting Books
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Sherwood, Robert E.
There Shall Be No Night
$425.00
Sherwood, Robert E.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940. First edition with Scribner’s “A”. Winner of 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a play about Finland’s invasion by the Soviet Union.
A signed presentation copy inscribed “from Madeline’s husband” to Gwendola Hurlock, sister of the book’s dedicatee and Sherwood’s wife, Madeline Hurlock, a silent film actress. Dated December, 1940.
Spine leaning, tanning to front and rear gutters, brief marks to the rear board — a solid very good or better copy in a very good rubbed dust wrapper with a few small, shallow chips.
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Peterkin, Julia
Black April
$800.00Bobbs Merrill: Indianapolis, 1927. First edition, first issue with ‘ducks quacked’ on page 17 (Ahearn Collected Books). “An extraordinary novel of Negro life on an isolated plantation” signed by the author on front free endpaper. Black April was “accepted by the critics as being one of the best books ever written about the southern negro” (The Sunday Oregonian). A very good copy, gilt on spine and front cover dulled as usual in very good, first issue dust wrapper without Crawford blurb, price intact, extremities of spine a little chipped, one small edge tear to rear. Peterkin went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, the first southern novelist to receive that honor. A household name for the better part of three decades, “Peterkin’s accomplishment lay in her upending the traditional plantation novel by replacing its gross stereotypes with rural black southerners of complexity, stamina, integrity, and courage, while valorizing the African spiritual inheritance as a transcendent force of cultural regeneration. Because no Uncle Toms, Aunt Jemimas or Colonels clad in white linen inhabited Peterkin’s fiction (indeed, white characters made rare appearances), and because she dared depict tender love and sex between black people, prickly white southerners viewed her suspiciously, perceiving her work as inflammatory and pornographic. In a letter to her mentor H.L. Mencken, Peterkin admitted the sting of her own family’s disdain. Her grown son, she relayed, urged her to write about ‘beautiful white men and women, not n-words.’ In a poignant confession of her alienation she tersely wrote, ‘No beautiful white people live in my head.'” (Life out of Darkness: The Recovery of Julia Peterkin, Forgotten Pulitzer Prize Winner by Elizabeth Robeson, M.Phil, Columbia University). less
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McBratney, Sam & Jeram, Anita
Guess How Much I Love You
$1,500.00New York: Candlewick Press, 1996. Early reprint. Inscribed to “Bean”, signed and dated by author McBratney, signed by illustrator Jeram and with an original drawing by her titled “Jumping Bean”. A publishing phenomenon from the start, as of its 25th anniversary in 2019, the book had sold more than 43 million copies worldwide in 57 languages. A near fine copy in like dust wrapper. Signed copies are scarce indeed and especially desirable with the original drawing. less
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Babitz, Eve (1943-2021)
SEX AND RAGE: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time
$995.00The third book by a 1970s Los Angeles “it girl”, an autobiographical novel in which Jacaranda revels in the pleasures of being a sexy beach bum in Los Angeles until after too many nights of “14 white ladies” she wakes up and takes an opposite path, moving to New York and a world of focus and work. This novel has been described as one which solidified “her place as a singularly important voice in Los Angeles literature—haunting, alluring, and alive.” SIGNED on title page and scarce thus. 227 pp. Very near fine in a near fine dustjacket (minor wear at the head of the dj spine) less
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Duncan, Robert
A Selection of 65 Drawings from one drawing book 1952-1956
$400.00Black Sparrow Press: Los Angeles, 1970. 65 loose prints, not bound (as issued). A signed presentation copy from Duncan to Diane di Prima and her second husband Grant (Fisher), with a full page original drawing on card stock, measuring 6″ X 9″, in the style of drawings from the book. The Black Sparrow Press item appeared with a publisher’s chemise and signed colophon page — these are not present here and presumably weren’t included in the author’s copies of the book. A few minor age spots to card stock, otherwise fine. When speaking of the impact of Duncan’s teachings, di Prima cited the lesson that poetry intensifies life. In an interview with fellow Beat poet David Meltzer, she recalled, “Robert was probably one of the closest, most intimate lovers I ever had, even though we never had a physical relationship. I learned a lot of different kinds of things from him. One of the things I learned—in a way no teacher of Buddhism ever showed me—was how precious my life was. How precious the whole ambience of the time. A real sense of appreciating every minute.” di Prima recalled their personal relationship in an August 2001 interview with poet David Hadbawnik: “Robert used to come and hang for days, he’d move into my house in Marshall in the ’70s, and bring his French mysteries that he was teaching himself idiomatic French from, and his notebook, and he’d stay for days. And he always came to Christmases with the kids, because Jess doesn’t like holidays, and so I’d have to say mid-’70s, through ’75 on, he was there many weekends, many mornings…. Eating fried herring from the bay for breakfast.” less
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