Explore our collectible books including manuscripts, maps, first editions, autographed, signed, illustrated, illuminated and children’s, spanning antique, vintage and contemporary. Sets to fill your home library, art books for your coffee table and rare works to add value to your collection.

First Editions

Novels

Fine Bindings

History

Children's Books

Books

A first printing copy of Steinbeck's experimental work Burning Bright.<ul><li>John Steinbeck (American).</li><li>New York: Viking Press, 1950.</li><li>159 pages.</li><li>Bound in original full tan cloth, front board and spine lettered in red, in original unclipped ($2.50) dust jacket in yellow, grey and orange, orange topstain.&nbsp;</li></ul> Expanding on the idea first developed in Of Mice and Men—adapting aspects of the theater into the structure of a novel—Steinbeck wrote this "play in story form" about the birth of a long-awaited child. The book was staged the same year with Rodgers and Hammerstein as producers.

Burning Bright

A Dutch copy of Morden and Lea's map, first published in 1690, extending from Hyde Park clockwise to Marylebone, Islington, Hackney, Stepney, Limehouse, Southwark and Lambeth, with many of the important buildings and monuments shown as elevations.<ul><li>Robert Morden (English).</li><li>Philip Lea (English).</li><li>This Actual Survey of London, Westminster &amp; Southwark Is humbly dedicated to ye L.d Mayor &amp; Court of Aldermen.</li><li>Amsterdam: Jean Covens &amp; Cornelis Mortier, circa 1750.</li><li>The map has been updated with the developments around Grosvenor Square and Cavendish Square, and Westminster Bridge, approved 1736 and opened 1750, as shown.</li><li>Under the map are extensive numbered tables corresponding with numbers on the map and detailing Public Offices, Wards, Halls and Companies, Markets, Inns of Court and Chancery, Prisons, Palaces, Public Buildings, Hospitals and Parishes, un-updated.</li><li>Two sheets conjoined.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul>

Dutch Map of London

An inscribed twenty-sixth edition copy of How To Win Friends and Influence People.<ul><li>Dale Carnegie (American, 1888-1955).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Simon and Schuster,&nbsp;1937.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>312 pages.</li><li>Inscribed to William Haussler by Carnegie on the front free endpaper: "with deep salaams and salutations. You, William Haussler, have won many friends with your excellent pictures."</li><li>Bound in publisher's rough red cloth, gilt stamping to front board, black to spine.</li></ul>

How To Win Friends and Influence People

A first edition copy of The House at Pooh Corner.<ul><li>A.A. Milne (English, 1882-1956).</li><li>Illustrated by E. H. Shephard.</li><li>London: Methuen &amp; Co. Ltd., 1928.</li><li>Bound in the publisher's original gilt stamped pink cloth, top edge gilt, pictorial pastedowns and endpapers.</li></ul>

The House at Pooh Corner

A finely bound copy of The Golden Treasury.<ul><li>Francis Turner Palgrave (British, 1824-1897).</li><li>London: Macmillan &amp; Co., 1908.</li><li>Bound in full vellucent vellum binding, covers and spine ruled in gilt, title to spine incorporated in an interlaced art nouveau style, title also to the front cover with an image of Pan incorporated in the “G,” the balance of the title also incorporated in an interlaced floral art nouveau style, gilt dentelles, paper and vellum doublures, top edge gilt, others uncut, stamped Cedric Chivers Bath to the lower edge of the rear cover.</li></ul> Around 1903, Cedric Chivers of Bath, England, developed a remarkable method of decoration for the binding of books: the transparent vellum or “Vellucent” method. The process involved an artist painting on a super-thin surface medium, and a sheet of vellum, shaved to translucent thinness, was laid over it, with the now indivisible pieces bound over boards. For the first time in the history of the bibliopegistic art, the actual work of the artist, undiluted by a translation through the hands of a binding technician, was involved in the decoration of the book. Using the “Vellucent method” it was also possible to incorporate further embellishments such as mother-of-pearl and iridescent shell, and the like, all of which may be covered and permanently protected by the vellum. As The Graphic Arts and Crafts Year Book for 1908 wrote, “It is difficult indeed not to become enthusiastic over the idea of the gorgeous aspect of a wealthy booklover’s library of “Vellucent” bound books, which may become at the same time a cabinet of works of art, each one of his choice and rare volumes bearing an unique specimen of the book decorator’s skill, and embellished with the most varied and brilliant effects.”

The Golden Treasury

A finely bound copy of The French Court and Society.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2 volumes.</li><li>Catherine Jackson (English, 1824-1891).</li><li>The French Court and Society, Reign of Louis XVI and First Empire.</li><li>London: Richard Bentley &amp; Son, 1881.</li><li>Extra illustrated with the insertion of numerous additional tipped plates, some hand-colored from contemporary sources.</li><li>Title pages printed in red and black.</li><li>Bound in full tan crushed morocco, ribbed gilt decorated spines, covers ruled and paneled with interlocking panels of gilt fillets, gilt dentelles, all edges gilt, green silk morie endpapers, green morocco doublures, volume 1 doublure with a fine inset oval watercolor miniature of a lady of court signed indistinctly “Guigui_ _ _, by Bayntun Riviere.</li></ul>

The French Court and Society

A limited-edition copy of The Importance of Being Earnest.<ul><li>Oscar Wilde (Irish).</li><li>The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.</li><li>London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899.</li><li>Small quarto.</li><li>Numbered 371 out of an edition of 1,000.</li><li>Publisher's lilac cloth, gilt designed by Charles Shannon.</li></ul>

The Importance of Being Earnest

First edition of the collection of music manuscripts and scores entitled Notations.<ul><li>John Cage (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Something Else Press, Inc,&nbsp;1969.</li><li>[320] unpaginated pages.</li><li>Large octavo.</li><li>White boards with copper titles on spine in white dust jacket.</li></ul>

Notations

Signed first edition copy of the James Bond novel You Only Live Twice.<ul><li>Ian Fleming (English).</li><li>London: Jonathan Cape, March 1964.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Inscription to the front free endpaper, 'To Jonathan from Ian'.&nbsp;</li><li>Bound in publisher's black boards blocked in silver and gilt, bamboo effect endpapers, with the illustrated dust-jacket&nbsp;.</li></ul>

You Only Live Twice

Autographed letter from Milne mentioning Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin.<ul><li>A.A. Milne (English).</li><li>Chelsea, 1931.</li><li>1-page, in ink, single sided, dated July 25, 1931.</li></ul>

Letter from A.A. Milne

A limited-edition copy of Picasso's Diurnes.<ul><li>Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973).</li><li>Photography by André Villers.</li><li>Text by Jacques Prévert.</li><li>Paris: Berggruen, 1962.</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>18 pages of text accompanied by 30 loose-leaf phototype and pochoir plates by Picasso and Villers, with each print in a paper sleeve with printed caption.</li><li>Part of a limited edition of 1,000 copies.</li><li>Housed in publisher's box with color design by Picasso, original Arches paper chemise with pochoir title to front cover designed by Picasso.</li></ul>

Diurnes: Découpages et Photographies

First paperback edition of Mockingbird Wish Me Luck signed.<ul><li>Charles Bukowski (American).</li><li>Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1972.</li><li>Limited edition of 2,515 copies.</li><li>Inscribed, signed and with two drawings by Bukowski on the title page.</li><li>Bound in original printed wrappers.</li></ul>

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

<a href=" https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection " rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a>First edition of Thomas'&nbsp;Deaths and Entrances.<ul><li>Dylan Thomas (Welsh).</li><li>London: J.M. Dent &amp; Sons Ltd.,&nbsp;1946.</li><li>Duodecimo.</li><li>Bound in original orange cloth with spine gilt-lettered and first two leaves just trimmed as a part of the binding process and in original dust jacket.</li><li>Housed in red and black morocco clamshell case.</li></ul>

Deaths and Entrances

A large Paper Edition, finely bound set of Nathaniel Hawthorne's writings.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 22 volumes.</li><li>Nathaniel Hawthorne (American).</li><li>Boston &amp; New York: Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co., 1900.</li><li>Includes portraits, illustrations and facsimiles.&nbsp;</li><li>500 copies printed, this being no. 329.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter brown morocco and silk boards with the raised band spines gilt-tooled with inlaid flowers, the top edges are gilt with silk endpapers.</li></ul>

Complete Writings

A facsimile edition of Taos Pueblo by Ansel Adams.<ul><li>Ansel Adams (American).</li><li>Text by Mary Austin (American).</li><li>Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1977.</li><li>Includes 12 photographic plates.</li><li>Signed and inscribed by Ansel Adams.</li><li>Numbered 223.</li><li>Bound in orange cloth with tan leather spine.</li><li>Housed in matching orange fabric slipcase.</li></ul>

Taos Pueblo

Finely bound copy of Dante's Divine Comedy in both English and Italian.<ul><li>Dante Alighieri (Italian).</li><li>Illustrations after Sandro Botticelli (Italian).</li><li>La Divina Commedia or The Divine Vision of Dante Alighieri in Italian &amp; English.</li><li>[London], The Nonesuch Press, 1928.</li><li>34 double-page and 8 full-page illustrations after the drawings of Botticelli.</li><li>Limited edition of 1,475 copies, this being number 805.</li><li>Bound in publisher's full orange-stained vellum, double gilt rule borders to upper and lower covers, central gilt device to both covers, gilt lettering to spine and top edge gilt.</li></ul>

La Divina Commedia

Set of Milleriana including his second book,&nbsp;Black Spring, his most important short prose writings,&nbsp;The Cosmological Eye&nbsp;and&nbsp;Plexus,&nbsp;the core volume in&nbsp;The Rosy Crucifixion&nbsp;series.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4.</li><li>Henry Miller (American).</li></ul> Black Spring.Paris: The Obelisk Press, 1938.Octavo.Second printing.Bound in original blue and white printed wrappers. The Cosmological Eye.Norfolk: New Directions, 1939.Octavo.Signed and dated on the flyleaf.Bound in original beige linen cloth with printed illustration of eye on upper board. Plexus.Paris: The Olympia Press, 1953.Octavo.2 volumes.Number 1,255 of 2,000 numbered editions.Bound in original orange printed wrappers. This item is final sale and not eligible for return.

Black Spring, The Cosmological Eye and Others

A signed copy of Philip Van Doren Stern's story, The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale, which would later be adapted into the iconic film, It's A Wonderful Life.<ul><li>Philip Van Doren Stern (American).</li><li>New York: Privately published by the author, 1943.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>First edition and sole printing.</li><li>One of 200 copies, printed by the author to be distributed as Christmas cards.</li><li>Inscribed by the author.</li><li>Single gathering, wire stitched into the original tan wrappers, cream paper title label to front wrapper printed in black.</li></ul>

The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale

Set of Milne's Pooh series, inscribed by Christopher Milne, the author's son and inspiration for Christopher Robin.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4.</li><li>A.A. Milne (English).</li><li>Illustrated by E.H. Shepard (English).</li><li>London: Methuen Children's Books, 1977.</li><li>Inscribed by Christopher Milne on the half-title of each volume "For Emma and Feona with all good wishes Christopher Milne Dartmouth 14. January 1978."</li><li>Hardbound in publisher's original gilt-stamped brown paper boards, pictorial pastedowns and endpapers, with the original pictorial dust jackets.</li></ul> Milne began the poems in When We Were Very Young for his son Christopher Robin. They had originally appeared in Punch magazine and, to the shock of Milne and Methuen, the book sold out on publication day. It was an unqualified success, quoted, recited and parodied everywhere. Milne based the stories of his second major book Winnie-the-Pooh on a set of stuffed animals Christopher Robin (called "Billy Moon" in the family) owned. Methuen published Milne's third children's book just two months after Winnie-the-Pooh. The House at Pooh Corner would be the last of the Pooh books. Milne wanted both to stop while the books were selling well — "I have had my thrill out of children's books, and know that I shall never recapture it" — and to protect his growing son: "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him. Moreover, since he is growing up, he will soon feel that he has had more publicity than he wants for himself. We all, young and old, hope to make some sort of name, but we want to make it in our own chosen way, and, if possible, by our own exertions" (Thwaite pages 338–39).

When We Were Very Young, Winnie The Pooh, The House At Pooh Corner, Now We Are Six

First Sparks edition and the first collected edition large paper copies of correspondence, addresses, messages and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts, The Writings of George Washington, with A Life of the Author, notes and illustrations by Jared Sparks.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 12.</li><li>George Washington (American).</li><li>Jared Sparks (American).</li><li>Boston: American Stationers’ Company; Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Metcalf, and Hilliard, Gray, and Co.; Boston: Russell, Shattuck, and Williams, and Hilliard, Gray, and Co. 1834-1837.</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>All first issues except volume III which is a second issue.</li><li>Illustrated with frontispieces to four volumes and thirty further plates as called for.</li><li>Bound in recent tan half calf over marbled boards, gilt titles on red and green morocco squares to spines, gilt tooling to spines, marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Writings of George Washington

<a href=" https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection " rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a>First edition Slater copy of du Maurier's Trilby.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3.</li><li>George du Maurier (Franco-British).</li><li>London: Osgood, Mcilvaine &amp; Co, 1894.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Publisher's catalogue to the end of volume 3.</li><li>Bound in original natural buff cloth with pictorial blocking and blue lettering.</li><li>House in a custom drop-back box.</li></ul>

Trilby

Signed copy of From Julia Child's Kitchen by both Julia and Paul Child.<ul><li>Julia Child (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Alfred A. Knopf,&nbsp;1975.</li><li>xvi, 687, xxvi pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Limited edition of 1,500, this being number 409.</li><li>White with black lettering to orange spine in orange dust jacket with top edge dyed blue.</li><li>Housed in slip case.</li></ul>

From Julia Child's Kitchen

A first edition copy of the book that changed baseball — Bill James's second Baseball Annual, one of just 250 copies.<ul><li>Bill James (American).</li><li>1978 Baseball Abstract: The 2nd Annual Edition of Baseball's Most Informative and Imaginative Review.</li><li>Lawrence, KS:&nbsp;Bill James,&nbsp;1978.</li><li>115 pages.</li><li>Bound in original stab-stapled printed green wrappers, xerographically reproduced throughout.</li></ul> In 1977 when James published the first installment in his long-running series of abstracts, he would have seemed an unlikely candidate to change the very game he was writing about. A worker at a pork and beans factory, James photocopied a small edition of (the cover proclaimed) "Statistical Information That You Just Can't Find Anywhere Else." He offered them for sale via the classified ads of The Sporting News, and sold only about 75 copies. Of this seemingly inauspicious beginning, Michael Lewis would later write: "[H]ad he left off writing in 1977, James would have been dismissed as just another crank [...] It didn't occur to him to be disappointed by the sale of seventy-five copies; he was encouraged [...] In 1978, James came out with a second book [...] Word had spread this time: 250 people bought a copy [...] James's pen was now an unstoppable force." And though it took more than a decade, the force of James's writing and his sheer statistical might slowly gathered a group of adherents both inside and out of professional baseball. Outside pro ball, James's approach helped launch the fantasy sports era with the popularity of Rotisserie Baseball, a game almost impossible to imagine without James. More importantly, within baseball a small number of coaches, scouts, managers and executives began experimenting with James's almost pure reliance on statistics (and not baseball's more traditionally semi-superstitious ways). This embrace of his strategy culminated most famously in the Oakland A's GM Billy Beane's remarkable run utilizing James "sabermetric" methods—leading the team to the postseason for four consecutive years (2000 through 2003) on one of baseball's lowest total salaries—a story made famous by Michael Lewis's bestselling book Moneyball (and its subsequent film adaptation starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman). James's approach would go on to have a huge impact even beyond the world of sports, with "moneyball" eventually entering the broader lexicon for any deeply statistical and evidenced-based approach that also runs counter to prevailing wisdom. As the new century progressed, a wide range of fields and figures—from those betting against the housing market (topic of another Michael Lewis book), to the political polling of figures like Nate Silver and the GTO strategies of professional poker, as well as a seemingly infinite number of Silicon Valley startups looking to "moneyball [fill in the blank]"—would evidence James's telltale fingerprints. He and Baseball Abstract have gone on to influence economists, physicists, mathematicians and other bestselling books like Freakonomics, which appeared just two years after Moneyball. As the Abstract became more popular in subsequent years, James did reprints of this and the 1977 edition (both with the word "REPRINT" prominently displayed on the covers). However, original printings of the first two installments remain truly rare. Indeed, the rarity of these early abstracts can be measured by the fact that not only does OCLC not show any holdings for either the 1977 or 1978 editions (including the reprints), but none for the 1979 or 1980 editions as well. It is not until the 1981 installment (the last James published himself before its acquisition by Ballantine) that we find a record in OCLC—a single copy at The Strong National Museum of Play.

1978 Baseball Abstract

First edition, Binding A of the scarce third James Bond novel.<ul><li>Ian Fleming (English).</li><li>London: Jonathan Cape, 1955.</li><li>pp. 256.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in publisher’s black cloth-effect paper over boards, titled in silver, in "flame" design dust wrapper by Kenneth Lewis, priced at 10/6 to both front and rear flaps.</li><li>Housed in a custom-made black cloth clamshell box.</li></ul>

Moonraker

Andy Warhol: The Thirteen Most Wanted Men (Dossier No. 2357) screen print and exhibition catalog, signed by the artist.<ul><li>Paris: Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, 1967.</li><li>Staple-bound exhibition catalog contains six text leaves and one black-and-white screen print.</li><li>Signed by Andy Warhol in four places: On the front cover, on the John Joseph screen print, inside the flap and on the back cover.</li><li>Published on the occasion of the exhibition Andy Warhol: The Thirteen Most Wanted Men, held in April 1967 at Galerie Ilena Sonnabend, Paris.</li></ul>

Andy Warhol: The Thirteen Most Wanted Men (Dossier No. 2357) Screen-Print & Exhibition Catalog

A first edition copy of Kusama's first novel, ンハッタン自殺未遂常習犯, (Manhattan Suicide Addict) never translated into English, illustrated with the artist's own work.<ul><li>Yayoi Kusama (Japanese).</li><li>Photography by Hikaru Sasaki (Japanese).</li><li>Foreword by Herbert Read.</li><li>Afterword by Shuzo Takiguchi.</li><li>Tokyo:&nbsp;Kowsakusha/Workshop and Forum International,&nbsp;1978.</li><li>Includes black and white drawings by Kusama.</li><li>In Japanese with English headings.</li><li>Presented in the original orange and silver wrappers, with original orange dust jackets.</li></ul> Manhattan Suicide Addict was written in three weeks "in a burst of manic energy," following the death of Kusama's longtime close friend Joseph Cornell and her subsequent return to Tokyo and entrance into Seiwa Hospital for the mentally ill. Remarkably, the debut novel of Japan's greatest living artist was translated into French only in 2005, and to date, no complete English version has been attempted. The text is a semi-autobiographical psychedelic vision of the artist's early years in New York City, illustrated with black and white reproductions of her dense, layered paintings and collages, full of quintessentially Kusama botanical, serpentine, lace-like, and polka-dot patterns reminiscent of her best-known and most popular work. The artist would revisit this period of her life in her much later autobiography Infinity Net: "New York was in every way a fierce and violent place. I found it all extremely stressful and was soon mired in neurosis.[...] My hands are empty now, but I shall fill them with everything my heart desires, right here in New York."

Manhattan Suicide Addict

This Collector’s Edition is the complete encyclopedia to Marc Newson's superstar career, featuring chronological entries organized by the varied categories of his oeuvre as well as detailed case studies of such landmark projects as the Qantas Airbus A380, Ikepod watches, and Aquariva boat.<ul><li>Marc Newson (Australian).</li><li>Alison Castle (American).</li><li>Los Angeles: TASCHEN, 2012. </li><li>610 pages.</li><li>Hardcover in slipcase.</li><li>Part of a limited Collector’s Edition of 1,000 copies, numbered 101–1,100.</li><li>Numbered and signed by Marc Newson.</li></ul> He has designed chairs, restaurants, boutiques, cars, planes, and even a spaceship. For Australian industrial designer&nbsp;Marc Newson, the sky is no limit. From mass-produced objects to limited-edition furniture to fashion, Newson has blurred boundaries, mapped new territories, and made himself&nbsp;an international superstar. This comprehensive tome leaves no stone unturned in&nbsp;cataloguing all of Newson’s works to date, from early pieces such as&nbsp;Lockheed Lounge&nbsp;(which holds the world record for the highest price paid for a piece of designer furniture, at over two million dollars) through designs of household objects and more recent, large-scale projects such as the interior of Qantas’s A380 and the Aquariva boat. The volume is arranged by encyclopedia-style entries, ordered chronologically in categories: Furniture, Objects, Interiors and Architecture, Timepieces and Jewelry, Transport, and Unreleased Projects. Extended,&nbsp;in-depth case studies cover a selection of Newson’s most important projects: the Kelvin40 plane, Qantas Airbus A380, Gagosian art editions, Ford 021C, Ikepod watches, and Aquariva boat. The catalogue is rounded out by a visual index cataloguing Newson’s complete works, an exclusive interview by Louise Neri, and contributions from Laszlo Adams, Nicholas Foulkes, Louise Neri, and Alice Rawsthorn.

Marc Newson: Works

A 2019 reprint of Daido Moriyama's 1972 photobook Farewell Photography, that has been signed by the artist.<ul><li>Daido Moriyama (Japanese).</li><li>Satoshi Machiguchi&nbsp;(Japanese).</li><li>Tokyo: Getsuyosha Limited, 2019.</li><li>280 pages.</li><li>Hardcover.</li><li>Hand-signed by Moriyama on the interior front page.</li><li>Part of a limited edition of 1,000.</li><li>The book includes a companion magazine with a retrospective essay by Moriyama as well as details and backgrounds for each single photobook</li><li>The English edition of the companion magazine opens with an edited English translation of Daido Moriyama’s conversation with Takuma Nakahira, originally included in Japanese in the 1972 release and never before translated.</li><li>Silk-screened canvas cover.</li></ul>

 Farewell Photography

A collection of books from the personal library of legendary singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse, spanning her school days through her rise to fame.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 227.</li><li>Several books include annotations by Winehouse.</li></ul> Featured selections:<ul><li>A photobook inscribed by Dave LaChapelle, who directed her music video, "Tears Dry on Their Own."</li><li>Winehouse's annotated copy of Little Shop of Horrors, in which she starred for a school production.</li><li>A copy of Allen Ginsberg's Howl!, containing fragments of handwritten song lyrics.</li><li>A complete inventory, prospectus, and additional images are available on request.&nbsp;</li><li>Includes a mix of hardcover and paperback bindings.</li></ul> Winehouse was a known reader; both she and her family commented on this aspect of her personality over the years in interviews. These, her own copies of her books, make it easy to recognize the teenager who loved Salinger, the nerd who acquired numerous graphic novels, the training vocalist reading multiple Frank Sinatra biographies and the touring musician just looking for a good read to pass the time on the road. Among the books are well-read favorites (like Jackie Collins) and gifts from friends. There are books from schools she attended (some with her annotations), books inscribed to her (including one from ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil) and books about or by other musicians who struggled with addictions (Jimi Hendrix, Boy George, Alex James, Anthony Kiedis). Her beloved grandmother's email is penned on a bookmark, the guest list for a party is written on the last page of one book; in another, there is an ownership stamp of one of the hospitals where Winehouse was once admitted. The collection offers an intimate, tender and revealing look into the intersection of the public, private and creative lives of one of the most indelible musical artists of the early 21st century.

Collection of books from the personal library of Amy Winehouse

Portfolio with die-cut plates by the Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs.<ul><li>Dieter Roth (Swiss).</li><li>New Haven:&nbsp;Ives-Sillman,&nbsp;1958-1964.</li><li>Limited edition, this is number 82 of 250 copies signed Diter Rot.</li><li>Square folio.</li><li>Portfolio of title leaf and 24 die-cut plates on alternating black and white paper.</li><li>Portfolio bound in black cloth with upper cover title in white.</li></ul> "Each page of the book features a series of cut slots: thick and thin, single and multiple, at various angles. Turning the page is a distinctly kinetic experience as one cut sheet piles on top of another, with the patterned grids flickering to great optical effect" (MoMA).

Book AC

A first edition of Plath's only novel, published in London under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" and unpublished in the US until after her death.<ul><li>Sylvia Plath (American).</li><li>London: Heinemann, 1963.</li><li>258 pages.</li><li>Bound in the original black paper boards, gilt-lettered spine, in original unclipped (18s) color pictorial dust jacket designed by Thomas Simmonds.</li></ul> Plath's self-described "potboiler" was damned with dismissive praise in its own day as a sort of girl's Catcher in the Rye. (Though, as Heather Clark notes, if Esther Greenwood has a male antecedent, it is not Holden Caulfield but Joyce's Stephen Dedalus.) Harrowingly personal and famously autobiographical, The Bell Jar is also overtly political: an "indictment of the fifties in America," an adolescent girls' book "written by a woman who has been to hell and back and wants to revenge herself on her tormentors. It is a girls' book filled with poison, vomit, blood, and volts of electricity" (Malcolm).

The Bell Jar

A signed first edition of Ruscha's last solo photobook to use the minimal "house style" made famous by Twentysix Gasoline Stations and other early works.<ul><li>Edward Ruscha (American).</li><li>Los Angeles: Edward Ruscha, 1970.</li><li>48 pages.</li><li>25 black and white photographic illustrations.</li><li>Part of an edition of 4,000 unnumbered copies.</li><li>Signed by Ruscha in pencil on front free endpaper.&nbsp;</li><li>Bound in original white printed wrappers.</li></ul> The 25 black and white photographs of Real Estate Opportunities frequently include "For Sale" signs, recalling Ruscha's early life as an aspiring commercial artist who "learned sign-painting techniques and painted many commercial signs, including For Sale signs" (Phillpot). Properties pictured, captioned with their addresses, include houses, residential lots and forlorn stretches of barren land whose only neighbors are the telephone poles and roads of southern California.

Real Estate Opportunities

Signed first printing of Williams's most enduring play, a beautiful copy in the iconic Lustig-designed dust jacket.<ul><li>Tennessee Williams (American).</li><li>(New York):&nbsp;New Directions,&nbsp;(1947).</li><li>171, [1] pages.</li><li>Signed by Williams on front free endpaper.</li><li>Bound in original pink pictorial boards with design by Alvin Lustig, in original unclipped ($2.75) pink pictorial dust jacket echoing board design.</li></ul> "Hollywood would never be the same after the release of Streetcar." —R. Barton Palmer and William Robert BrayThe broken dreams of a Southern belle are dramatized in Williams's best-known play, a hit on Broadway with Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando in the lead roles (both then virtually unknown). After its brilliant run on stage, Streetcar went through a groundbreaking adaptation into film, keeping many of the same people involved: Brando garnered his first Oscar nomination in the film, starring alongside Vivien Leigh. According to Geoffrey Shurlock, who was involved in the Production Code Administration that monitored the morality of motion pictures, Streetcar changed the landscape of how films could communicate drama for adult audiences: "Tennessee Williams was something new to movies... The stage got a shock from Tennessee Williams. We got twice the shock. Now we know that a good deal of what we decide in censoring movies is not morality but taste. It began with Streetcar" (quoted in Palmer and Bray). This first edition has since become famous in its own right for the brilliant pink jacket design by Alvin Lustig, a high point of New Directions' publications. Palmer and Bray, Hollywood's Tennessee: The Williams Films and Postwar America.

A Streetcar Named Desire

A&nbsp;set of the first printings of the second US edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comprising The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>J.R.R. Tolkien (English).</li><li>Jackets and label designed by Robert Quackenbush.&nbsp;</li><li>Boston/Cambridge:&nbsp;Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press,&nbsp;1967.</li><li>424, 452 and 440 pages respectively.</li><li>With all folding maps (by Tolkien's son Christopher) present.</li><li>Houghton Mifflin review slips loosely laid into each volume.</li><li>Bound in the original publisher's full black gilt-stamped cloth all in original unclipped ($6.00) color pictorial dust jackets.</li></ul> Tolkien's Middle Earth grew not only from his experiences in World War I and studies as a professor of English language and literature at Oxford, but from his childhood hobby of constructed languages (conlangs). Tolkien argued in his essay "A Secret Vice" that "for perfect construction of an art-language it is found necessary to construct at least in outline a mythology" along with it. In other words, "your language construction will breed a mythology." Middle Earth sprang into being in part so that Tolkien could draw on a mature culture, history and mythology for his beloved conlangs. As a result, we have Bilbo, Frodo and Sam; Gandalf the Grey, and Aragorn who is Strider; the One Ring, the covetous Gollum; and a harrowing journey to Mount Doom. Houghton published the first US editions of the trilogy from 1954-1956. This second US edition follows closely the second UK from Allen &amp; Unwin of the previous year, which was heavily revised and corrected by the author. These books, marketed as the "Revised Edition" and including a new foreword by Tolkien, were issued both as individual volumes (as here) and a slipcased set.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

An extensive photo album compiled by and documenting the career of aviation pioneer Wilhelm Heinrich Evers.<ul><li>Wilhelm Heinrich Evers (German).</li><li>80 black paper leaves with approximately 367 black and white photographs (all but a few gelatin silver prints) mounted to rectos and versos in dry corner mounts, 3 additional prints laid-in.&nbsp;</li><li>Prints frequently annotated in white album pen in both English and German.</li><li>Commercial album, black textured strong-tied leather over flexible stiff card wrappers.&nbsp;</li></ul> Evers was among the first wave of intrepid pilots to take to the skies following the Wright Brothers' 1903 flight. Active in both Germany and the United States, Evers's Fédération Aéronautique Internationale license number was 190, and he was a member of the Early Birds of Aviation (founded in 1928, limited only to the first 600 or so pilots who flew prior to December 16, 1916). Within the first decade of flight, Evers not only designed, built and flew his own planes in Germany, but was a pilot for the first commercial airline in the United States (The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line, 1913). Later, he would help develop some of the first high altitude aircraft (for Fokker Aircraft and others), held a number of aviation patents, and was among the main designers of the Junkers Ju 88—one of the most important German fighters of the Second World War. Most of these portions of his career are documented in this album with more than 350 original photographs. The album spans about 1910 through 1929 and covers his earliest flights in Germany (1910-1911); his foundational work with Thomas W. Benoist on the world's first passenger airline in Tampa, Florida (1913-1914); his work with Fokker in the 1920s and more. The first approximately 85 photographs document different iterations of Evers's early German flyers of his own design, designated E-I through E-VI and dated 1910-1913. The album then moves to Evers's close work with early aviators Tony Janus and Thomas W. Benoist in St. Louis, Missouri, including another about 85 photographs focusing on Benoist's St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, for which Evers was one of three original pilots. Roughly the final half of the album provides a highly technical glimpse into his work, largely in New Jersey with the Fokker Aircraft Corporation on various projects—including its failed F-32.

Photo Album of Aviator Wilhelm Heinrich Evers

A complete eleven-issue run of one of the greatest publications to emerge from the mid-century experimental music scene.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 11 numbers in 10 volumes.</li><li>Davis and Sacramento CA: Composer and Performer Edition, 1967-1973.</li><li>Printed offset throughout on various paper stocks, with numerous custom elements: die-cut and folded sheets, glassine inserts and a variety of tipped-in items.</li><li>Bound in the original spiral-bound pictorial wrappers all, issues 7/8 printed tete beche.&nbsp;</li></ul> Elaborately produced and edited by Larry Austin (UC-Davis instructor and director of its New Music Ensemble), SOURCE aimed not only to document the experimental music scene that centered primarily on the West Coast (Mills College, etc.), but to expand the very idea of the musical score: "Our idea of a 'score' is broad. To us it is transcribed information about the composer's music-making process and contains a way of imparting this information to those who might recreate the composition" (Austin, issue 1). Much like frequent contributor John Cage's 1969 book Notations, SOURCE argued in part that the score should be viewed as much as a visual art as a musical one. This was reflected in the magazine's production: a Dick Higgins score riddled with actual bullet holes, John Cage's "Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel" printed in color on glassine, and perhaps most infamously Nelson Howe's "Fur Music," which utilized actual tipped-in fur swatches and included the instruction "to focus attention on the exploration of the tactile qualities of fur, but with the added requirement that the tactile sensation be *heard*." Contributors across the run include: John Cage, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, Harold Budd, Lejaren Hiller, Max Neuhaus, Larry Austinm, among many others.

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John Steinbeck

Robert Morden, Philip Lea

Dale Carnegie

A.A. Milne

Francis Turner Palgrave

Catherine Jackson

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John Cage

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A.A. Milne

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A.A. Milne

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Andy Warhol

Yayoi Kusama

Marc Newson, TASCHEN, Alison Castle

Daido Moriyama

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Edward Ruscha

Tennessee Williams

J.R.R. Tolkien