
The Accidental Bookseller
Specializing in Uncommon Copies of Interesting Books
Membership(s): IOBA, FABA
Watson, James D.
Genes, Girls and Gamow
$400.00
Watson, James D.
Oxford University Press: Oxford (UK), 2001. The true first edition, preceding the US edition published by Knopf later that year.
Signed by the author, a Nobel Laureate for the discovery (along with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA.
Spine a little leaning, minor bump to top front board and one corner, otherwise nearly fine in very good or better dust wrapper, slightly edgeworn and with one minor snag.
While signed copies of the US edition are not uncommon, signed copies of the UK first are difficult to find — even more so without an inscription.
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Lucien N-B Wyse
LE CANAL DE PANAMA L’Isthme Américain Explorations Comparaison Des Traces Étudiées Négociations Etat Des Travaux [SIGNED]
$405.93 *
* estimated currency conversionBound with Canal Interocéanique de Panama, Mission de 1890/1891 en Colombie, Rapport Général, Achille Heymann, 1891, Paris. Handsomely rebound set of Wyse’s two major works on the Panama Canal, both presentation copies and signed by him. Dedication to first blank dated May 1900, presenting the volume to the Bibliotheque Francaise in Syndey, Australia. The second work is more simply signed “Hommage de l’auteur – L N Bonaparte Wyse” to half title. There is a library stamp to each title page, but no other indications of library use. Three large fold out maps and plans present as required, along with fold-out table of the various plans and schemes submitted for the canal. First map has closed tear which has been effectively, if slightly crudely, repaired to rear, and all maps are a little grubby to creases. Now attractively rebound in green quarter leather with gilt tilting to spine and marbled paper-covered boards to match endpapers. Scare signed thus. French language. 4to. [6] 401pp [4] 154pp less
moreOffered for Sale by: Dodman Books -
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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Aureli Capmany
Cançoner Popular [Serie 1-3] [SIGNED]
$338.28 *
* estimated currency conversionThe original three series of popular Catalonian songs, 100 in total, published between 1901 and 1913 and bound as a single volume. Signed and dedicated by Capmany to half title, in 1953, one year before his death. A remarkable collection, each song illustrated, many by leading artists, with accompanying lyrics, score and notes on the work. In VG order throughout. Stock quality and paper sizes vary, but bar occasional spotting and toning to page edges, all is clean and bright. Binding is quarter white leather, a little marked, with four raised bands with gilt titling and decoration. Front board is paper-covered with cover from third series, this fact discreetly covered by paper patch. A little marked, moreso to rear. A unique copy of an important item. 8vo. Unpaginated less
moreOffered for Sale by: Dodman Books -
Johnson, Denis
Inner Weather
$1,250.00Port Townsend: Graywolf Press, (1976). First Edition. Limited edition, #9 of only 20 copies, signed by Johnson. The very scarce hardbound edition, simultaneously issued with 600 unsigned copies in wrappers. Johnson’s second book of poetry, published seven years before his first novel. An early publication from the author of Jesus’ Son and the National Book Award winning Tree of Smoke. Nearly fine with slight softening to corners without dust wrapper as issued. less
moreOffered for Sale by: The Accidental Bookseller