Since 1996 Black Cat Books has been buying and selling fine used books in their book shop, now located in the heart of Shelter Island, N.Y.  Stop by and browse over 20,000 fine and used titles, in all subject areas. From it’s inception, Black Cat Books has offered a well-chosen selection of titles for the reader and collector, presented in a relaxed and inviting atmosphere. The Black Cat is the a place to discover something great to read, a new trade paperback from your favorite author, or a out of print title you haven’t seen for years. An ever changing stock of vintage collectibles & signed first editions are presented in a well maintained and orderly shop. Open year round, so please feel free to stop in and check it out. Fall Hours are 10-5  Thursday through Monday, with other times by chance or appointment. Owner and book buyer Dawn Hedberg is always looking to find new and collectible books in all subject areas.

If you have books to sell please feel free to contact us to make an appointment for a house call.

(631) 725-8654

blackcatbooks@yahoo.com

· Category: About ·

Peter Newell built a reputation in the 1880s and 1890s for his humorous drawings and poems. He often illustrated the works of other authors, most famously Lewis Carroll. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician and photographer. He is best known for his famous writings, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, & The Hunting of the Snark.

Description: ALL 3 PETER NEWELL ILLUSTRATED LEWIS CARROLL EDITIONS! All First Editions of the Peter Newell illustrated edition. Hard bound with dust jackets in publishers box, as issued. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Published by Harper & Brothers, October 1901. Through The Looking Glass – Published by Harper & Brothers, October 1902. The Hunting of the Snark and Other Poems – Published by Harper & Brothers, October 1903. Ivory paper covers and olive green dust wrappers, with both lettered in gilt front and spine, with a small figures in gilt lower front. Gilt top stain and deckled page edges. Each a beautifully designed volume, with page borders decorated in sage green. Text block and illustrations clean and crisp. Very minor foxing to boards. Some fading to olive green dust jackets. Wear and foxing to publishers box, otherwise very good. It’s quite unusual to see all 3 of Lewis Carroll’s classics for sale together. Rare!

Bookseller Inventory # 28699

$1500

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Through The Looking Glass
The Hunting of the Snark and Other Poems
Carroll, Lewis; Newell, Peter

Publisher: Harper and Brothers
Publication Date: 1901 -1903
Binding: Hard Bound with jackets in Publishers Box
Illustrator: Newell, Peter
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: First Printings of the Peter Newell Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Literary First Editions, Recent Acquisitions ·

Barnett Newman was one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters. Newman was a member of the Uptown Group, along with Motherwell, Pollock, Ad Reinhardt & others. His rejection of the expressive brushwork employed by other abstract expressionists, and his use of hard-edged areas of flat color, can be seen as a precursor to post painterly abstraction and  minimalist work. Newman’s mature style is characterized by the zip, a thin, vertical line that zips through large areas of color. Despite changes in his color palette, zips remained a fundamental aspect of Newman’s work, simultaneously creating spatial divides and uniting the canvas. A well-respected writer and critic, he also organized exhibitions and wrote catalogs. Newman was unappreciated as an artist for much of his life, being overlooked in favor of more colorful characters such as Jackson Pollock. The influential critic Clement Greenberg wrote enthusiastically about him, but it was not until the end of his life that he began to be taken very seriously.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Cream color cloth boards with white titles. 260  pages with 270 illustrations, including 131 in color and 5 gate-fold plates. Contains color reproductions of many privately owned paintings. An exhaustive monograph on Newman. Rosenberg begins with a detailed account of Newman’s watercolors, lithographs, etchings, sculpture, and architecture, fully illustrating each section with clear, sharp photographs. Includes chronology , list of illustrations, appendix, and fully researched bibliography. Newman was one of the most influential American painters of the modern era. Now, within this text, his career has been carefully researched and thoroughly documented. This edition brings together for the first time reproductions in color of almost every one of Newman’s paintings, as well as most of the drawings, watercolors, works in mixed media, sculpture, etchings, lithographs, and architecture. Some minor foxing to cream colored cloth boards. The dust jacket shows some shelf wear and one small chip to edge. Now in protective Brodart cover. SCARCE!

Bookseller Inventory # 28561

$200

Barnett Newman
Rosenberg, Harold

Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Recent Acquisitions ·

Moby Dick is considered to be one of the Great American Novels and a treasure of world literature. Written by Herman Melvile The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by the mad Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out a specific whale “Moby Dick”, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab’s boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take his revenge.

Approached in 1926 by publisher R. R. Donnelley to produce an illustrated edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast, Kent suggested Moby Dick instead. Published in 1930 by the Lakeside Press of Chicago, the three volume limited edition filled with Kent’s haunting black and white drawings sold out immediately. Random House produced this trade edition which was also immensely popular. A previously obscure book, the success of the Rockwell Kent illustrated edition was a factor in its becoming recognized as a modern classic.

Description: Hard bound, no dust jacket. First Rockwell Kent trade edition, first printing. Bound in black boards with silver lettering and picture of breaching whale on front. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent with woodcuts throughout the text, with full-page plates, chapter head- and tailpieces, other smaller cuts in the text. Wear to boards with edges and corners threadbare. Minor damp staining to upper page edges, otherwise very good, with interior clean and binding sound. This edition has been credited with contributing greatly to the rediscovery of Moby Dick as a modern classic – Scarce!

Bookseller Inventory # 28537

$275

Moby Dick
Melvile, Herman

Title: Moby Dick
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1930
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Kent, Rockwell
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition: First Thus

· Category: Featured Items, Literary First Editions, Recent Acquisitions ·

Patrick Leigh Fermor widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest travel writers. Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE (1915–2011) was a British author, scholar and soldier. A BBC journalist once described him as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene.” He played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance during World War II. For a year and a half Leigh Fermor, disguised as a Cretan shepherd endured a perilous existence, living in freezing mountain caves while spying on German troops. In April of 1944, dressed as German police corporal, he stopped the car belonging to General Karl Kreipe, the island’s commander. The chauffeur disposed of, Leigh Fermor donned the general’s hat and, with his accomplice Moss driving the car, they bluffed their way through 22 checkpoints. The General meanwhile, was hidden under the back seat. For three weeks the group evaded German search parties. Hunted by German patrols, the group moved across the mountains to reach the southern side of the island, where a British Motor Launch was to pick them up. Eventually, on 14 May 1944, they were picked up and transferred to Egypt with their prisioner. Patrick Leigh Fermor was awarded a military OBE in 1943 and was appointed a Companion of Literature in 1991. He received a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List, 2004.

Fermor  lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani. Roumeli is not to be found on present-day maps. It is the name once given to northern Greece—stretching from the Bosporus to the Adriatic and from Macedonia to the Gulf of Corinth, a name that evokes a world where the present is inseparably bound up with the past. His books His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. Celebrated not only for his books but for his wartime exploits, He is, perhaps, the last of a breed of writer-travelers whose reputation has an aura of genuine action and courage.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. First edition stated. Wear to dust jacket that shows sunning to spine edge. Some edge wear to blue cloth boards, otherwise with interior clean and binding sound. Scarce! Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Roumeli takes the reader among Sarakatsan shepherds, the monasteries of Meteora and the villages of Krakora. Roumeli is not on modern maps: it is the ancient name for the lands from the Bosphorus to the Adriatic and from Macedonia to the Gulf of Corinth.

Bookseller Inventory# 28626

$175

Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece
Fermor, Patrick Leigh

Publisher: Harper & Row, Publishers, New York
Publication Date: 1966
Edition:First U.S. Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Literary First Editions, Recent Acquisitions ·

Karl Bodmer was a Swiss painter of the American West. He accompanied German explorer Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied from 1832 through 1834 on his Missouri River expedition. He was hired as an artist by Maximilian with the specific intent of traveling through the American West and recording images of the different tribes they saw along the way. Karl  Bodmer produced realistic and very detailed paintings of members of various tribes and the landscapes he encountered. His style of painting, although influenced by European Romanticism, has been described as unprecedented in its realism. Today the majority of hisoriginal original water colors are located in three collections in the United States, with the majority of them located at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. They are among the most painstakingly accurate painted images ever made of Native Americans, their culture & artifacts, as well as the scenery of the pristine “Old West”.

Description: Oblong hard back in dust jacket. Bilingual Edition, with text in German & English. 81 full page, single sided prints on heavy stock, including 10 Beautiful hand colored plates! Limited edition, #366 of 1000. Some wear to dust jacket, now in protective Brodart cover. Damp staining to lower edge of green cloth boards. Some foxing to page edges. Foxing to gate-fold map, bound in. Several plats show very minor foxing, otherwise with interior clean & binding tight. Scarce and sought after!

Bookseller Inventory# 28620

$250

Bildatlas: Reise zu den Indianern am oberen Missouri 1832 – 1834
Picture Atlas: Travel to the Indians of the Upper Missouri 1832 – 1834
Bodmer, Karl

Title: Picture Atlas: Travel to the Indians of the Upper Missouri
Publisher: Hermann Bender, Germany
Publication Date: 1970
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket: Dust Jacket Included
Edition: Limited edition #366 of 1000

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Recent Acquisitions ·

· Category: About ·

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket, in publishers pictoral slipcase. Limited edition of 1000 printed copies. Text in English and Italian. 419 pages. Preface by Reino Liefkes. An exhaustive work, profusely illustrated. Minor shelf wear to publishers slipcase, otherwise fine. Rare in the United States.

Bookseller Inventory # 24162
SOLD

Murano ’900
Deboni, Franco

Publisher: Bocca Editori
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Ed Ruscha has become know for his deadpan irreverence, and his Pop inspired art work. He holds the mirror up to the banality of urban life and gives order to the barrage of mass media-fed images and information that confronts us daily. Born in Omaha in 1937, He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950′s where he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute. By the early sixties he had made a name for himself for his collage, painting and printmaking, and for his association with the Ferrus Gallery group. Later he achieved recognition for his painting incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books.

Description: INSCRIBED BY ED RUSCHA “Best to Chris! Ed Ruscha”. First Edition 1/2000. 64 pages with 37 color plates. Published on the occasion of the 1997 Leo Castelli Gallery exhibition and in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their working relationship with Ed Ruscha. 17 “Cityscape” paintings and 20 exhibited books emblazoned with either paint or bleach by the artist to reveal the letter “O”. Some very minor sunning to edges of wrappers, otherwise fine.

Bookseller Inventory# 26144

$350

Edward Ruscha: Cityscapes / O Books
Ruscha, Ed

Publisher: Leo Castelli Gallery
Publication Date: 1997
Binding: Soft cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Recent Acquisitions, Signed & Inscribed ·

Susan Meiselas is best known for her documentation of political upheaval and human rights issues in Latin America. She first gained recognition for her work in El Salvador. During the civil war there she photographed the uncovered graves of four murdered American nuns. The circulation of these images prompted a Congressional investigation into El Salvador’s right-wing death squads and the United States involvement in the war. “Susan Meiselas’ photographs of the revolution in Nicaragua form an extraordinary narrative, starting with a powerful and chilling evocation of the Somoza regime, following the course of the popular resistance that led to an insurrection, and ending with the triumph of the revolution” – Martin Parr. Meiselas joined the Magnum group in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer ever since. Now 30 years after the publication of  Nicaragua she has become a leading figure in the field contemporary photojournalism.

Description: Oblong hard back with dust jacket. Black cloth-covered boards with title stamped in white on cover and spine, with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs and text by Susan Meiselas. Some wear and a few small closed tears to dust jacket, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding tight. Scarce!

Bookseller Inventory # 23780

SOLD

Nicaragua, June 1978 – July 1979
Meiselas, Susan

Publisher: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative
Publication Date: 1981
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: First U. K. Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

The Algonquin Round Table was a group of journalists, writers, actors, & press agents that met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel in the heart of Midtown. After World War I, Vanity Fair writers and Algonquin regulars Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and Robert E. Sherwood began lunching at The Algonquin. Together they helped define American taste in the arts for about a decade. Perhaps their greatest contribution was the founding of The New Yorker magazine. Though society columns referred to them as The Algonquin Round Table, they called themselves the Vicious Circle. Dorothy Parker and her friends were immortalized in 1987 in the Academy Award-winning documentary, The Ten Year Lunch. In 1994, the group was once again transported to the big screen in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker.

Description: Hard bound, no dust jacket. 310 pages. First printing.  INSCRIBED BY THE ALGONQUIN HOTEL’S OWNER - Ben B. Bodine, THE FRONT DESKMAN of more than 40 years – Alfred F. Mitchell, AND THE HEAD WAITER - Raul, dated March 16 – 51. Illustrations by Al Hirschfeld. The story of the Algonquin Round Table.  This copy shows some wear and minor soiling to boards. Interior clean and binding still tight. A RARE ASSOCIATION… and a bit of New York History.

Bookseller Inventory # 24177

SOLD

The Vicious Circle: The Story of the Algonquin Round Table
Harriman, Margret Case

Publisher: Rinehart & Co., New York
Publication Date: 1951
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket
Edition: First edition
Book Type: Inscribed Association Copy

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) the father of Modern Skepticism, was the most influential writer of the French Renaissance. He is primarily known for the creation of the essay as a literary genre, and his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes. His massive volume Essais contains to this day some of the most widely influential essays ever written.

Description: THE 1910 EMERSON EDITION of the The Works of Michel De Montaigne, COMPLETE IN TEN VOLUMES. An out of sequence copy in a LIMITED EDITION of 1050 printed copies. Translated by Charles Cotton. Revised with a preface by William Carew Hazlett. Introductory essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. All ten volumes are bound in 1/4 blue leather and French paper. Each spine edge has five raised bands, decorated with 4 gilt fleurs-de-lis, and gilt title. Top edges gilt. Red & black lettering on title pages. Each volume has both a b&w tissue-guarded frontispiece and then a hand colored tissue-guarded color frontispiece of the same engraving following it. There are many additional b&w tissue-guarded illustrative plates throughout each volume. Some minor chipping to heads of volume 1 and 10. Some minor rubbing to edges and corners. The front board of volume 1 disbound, but present. Hinges weak but holding well. Text blocks clean and square.

Bookseller Inventory # 25080

$1250

The Works of Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne, Michel de; Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Publisher: Edwin C. Hill
Publication Date: 1910
Binding: 10 volumes bound in 1/4 Leather
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: Limited Edition

· Category: Antiquarian & Leather Bound ·

A descendant of one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, Matthew King finds his luck has changed. His two daughters – Scottie, a feisty ten-year-old, and Alex, a teenage recovering drug addict – are out of control; his thrill-seeking, high-maintenance wife, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident and will soon be taken off life support. Suddenly the King family must come to terms with this tragedy – and with the shameful sense of freedom that comes with it. As Matt gathers Joanie’s friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a difficult situation is made worse by the discovery that one person hasn’t been told – the man with whom Joanie has been having an affair. Forced to examine what he owes not only to the living but also to the dead, Matt takes to the road with his daughters to find his wife’s lover on a memorable journey of painful revelations and unforeseen humor.

The book that the 2012 Gloden Globe Award winning film was based on!

SOLD

The Descendants
Hemmings, Kaui Hart

Title: The Descendants
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 2007
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Alexander Anderson has long been considered the father of wood engraving in America, being the first in this country to adopt the technique developed in England by Thomas Bewick. Wood engraving produces a finer image than the standard woodcut by working on the denser end-grain section of the wood. Anderson acknowledged his debt to Bewick in 1804 by creating an American edition of Bewick’s A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) with his own re-engraved blocks, adding “some American animals not hitherto described.” A General History of Quadrupeds was really the result of an increasing popular interest in natural history towards the end of the 18th century. Evidence of this interest can be seen by other notable publications at the time such as Gilbert Whiteís Natural History of Selborne (1789) and the wonderful works of Thomas Pennant, whose own General History of Quadrupeds in two volumes, illustrated with fine copper engravings, had first appeared in 1781.

Description: Hard bound in full leather. Stated “First American edition, with an appendix containing some American Animals not hitherto described”. Printed by G. & R Waite, No. 64, Maiden – Lane. 1804.  531 pages with hundreds of woodcuts by Anderson. Wear and deterioration to leather. Front board detached, but present. Missing front free end pages to title page. Minor foxing throughout. Head and tail chipped, with text block and binding tight. A scarce copy of a classic of natural history, and wood block illustration.

Bookseller Inventory # 24322

$650

A General History of Quadrupeds:
The Figures Engraved on Wood, Chiefly Copied from
the Original of T. Bewick, By A. Anderson
Anderson, A.

Publication Date: 1804
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fair
Edition: First American Edition

· Category: Antiquarian & Leather Bound ·

Lothar Baumgarten is a combination anthropologist, photographer, poet, storyteller, and installation maker. He has traveled in many a remote and outwardly inhospitable part of the world, aiming to live among its inhabitants as a concerned but invisible presence. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned Baumgarten to create a work that incorporated photo documentation. The focus was the artist’s research of the American railroad system. The work takes material form by integrating given structures into a complex whole and by creating a canon of references among individual, site-specific elements. — its tracks, bridges, signals, locomotives, rolling stock, stations, marshaling yards, logos, names and crossings on remote country roads. The photographs were later published along with eleven short stories in an artists’ book titled “Carbon.”

Deascription: Hard bound in dust jacket. 118 b&w and white color photographs. Published on the occasion of the Apr. 8 – Jun. 17, 1990 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles exhibition. INSCRIBED BY LOTHAR BAUMGARTEN in pencil on the limitation page ” For  H_ S_  21.7.93  N.Y.C  Lothar Baumgarten”.  Limited printing, 1 of 1750 copies. SIGNED Text pamphlet laid in at the rear.  Very minor wear to corners and edges of boards. Dust jacket shows wear , a few small chips and closed tears, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory# 22906

SOLD

Carbon
Baumgarten, Lothar

Publisher: Pentti Kouri / The Museum of Contemporary Art, L. A.
Publication Date: 1991
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Signed: inscribed by Photographer
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Nelson Algren was the first recipient of the National Book Award for fiction in 1950. He will be best remembered for his portrayal of societies discards, the addicts, the hookers, the poor hustling the poor, the washed up & down for the count. His novels capture the mood of the city’s underside, uplifted only by his characters’ pride, humor, and unquenchable yearnings. Among his popular successes were The Man with the Golden Arm and  A Walk on the Wild Side, both of which went on to be adapted into successful films. Algren was known to have had a 17 year long love affair with Simone de Beauvoir, he died May 9, 1981 in Sag Harbor, where is now buried.

“Never play cards with a man called Doc…
Never eat at a place called Mom’s….
Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own”
- Nelson Algren  A Walk on the Wild Side (1956)

Description: INSCRIBED BY NELSON ALGREN WITH AN ORIGINAL DRAWING OF A CAT. Algren’s third book, a collection of 24 short stories that established Algren in the pantheon of American writers. I nscribed to the famous New York bibliophile Burt Britton “with best wishes to Burt Britton from Nelson Algren N.Y.C. Oct 11 1975“.  In the 1970s, while working at the Strand bookstore in NYC Burt Britton assembled more than 500 self-portraits for a now well know book Self-Portrait: Book People Picture Themselves. His collection of original drawings & signatures was sold through Bloomsbury auction house in 2009. He was also instrumental in the the creation of the landmark New York book shop Books & Co. This copy shows some minor wear to Second state jacket with reviews on rear panel. Edge wear to boards. Some age toning, otherwise very good. A scarce New York association copy!

Bookseller Inventory# 26992

$200

The Neon Wilderness
Algren, Nelson

Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: 1948
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Literary First Editions, Recent Acquisitions, Signed & Inscribed ·

Internationally recognized photographer Peter Beard first visited Africa in 1955. After graduating from Yale, he returned to Africa and worked at Kenya’s Tsavo Park, during which time he photographed and documented the demise of over 35,000 elephants and 5000 Black Rhinos. The work done there led to the publication of The End of the Game books.

“When I first went to Kenya in August 1955, I could never have guessed what was going to happen. Kenya’s population was roughly five million, with about 100 tribes scattered throughout the endless ‘wild—deer—ness’ – it was authentic, unspoiled, teeming with big game – so enormous it appeared inexhaustible. Everyone agreed it was too big to be destroyed. Now Kenya’s population of over 30 million drains the country’s limited and diminishing resources at an amazing rate: surrounding, isolating, and relentlessly pressuring the last pockets of wildlife in denatured Africa.” —Peter Beard

Description: INSCRIBED BY PETER BEARD WITH DRAWING. No Jacket, as issued. First printing of the 1977 revised edition published on the occasion of the I.C.P. exhibition in New York. Very good hardback as issued without dust jacket. The gray boards have some sunning and wear. This is a lovely edition of this rare Beard classic & the most difficult Beard title to find SIGNED & INSCRIBED!

Bookseller Inventory #19114

$1600

The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise A Pictorial Documentation of the Origins, History and Prospects of the Big Game in Africa
Beard, Peter H.

Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 1977
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 1st Edition Thus

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Description: Hollywood East… New York’s “good life”… Shingle style, blue & white, Seagrass with coral and twig. Share the fantasy of the dream homes beyond the privet, presented through the eyes of 24 top designers. Hard bound in white cloth with white stamped letters to the spine and cover. Illustrated endpapers. Intro by Mayer Rus.  A beautiful survey of contemporary design in the Hamptons. Over 300 pages lavishly illustrated in full color!  Intro by Mayer Rus. Designers included: Jamie Drake, Thomas O’brien, Mark Zeff, Randy Kemper, Enrico Boetti & Dominic Kozerski, Thom Filicia, Kelly Graham, Jonathan Adler & Simon Doonan, Vicente Wolf and more. Minor wear to boards. Dust jacket shows somw sunning. Scuff and one small closed tear to upper spine edge of dust jacket, otherwise fine. Now out of print and exceedingly scarce!

Bookseller Inventory #23728

SOLD

Designing The Hamptons: Portraits Of Interiors
Rus, Mayer & Lind, Diana

Publisher:   Edizioni Press, New York
Publication Date:   2006
Binding:   Hard Bound
Book Condition:   Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition:   First Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Bill Brandt was Britain’s most admired photographer of the 20th century. He was known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes. Bill Brandt is widely considered to be one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, and in 2004 he received a major retrospective exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. 105 pages, 100 black and white illustrations. The most comprehensive collection of his nude work. Many of the photographs first appeared in Brandt’s Perspective of Nudes, 1961, although over a third were until this time unpublished. Wear and some very minor chipping to dust jacket edges, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory # 20204

$200

Bill Brandt: Nudes 1945-1980
Brandt, Bill

Publisher: New York Graphic Society
Publication Date: 1980
Binding: Hardbound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography ·

The Maidstone Club is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the United States. Set against the Atlantic Ocean in the posh town of East Hampton, it boasts a private beach, pool, tennis house, and club house. The Club derives its name from the original name for East Hampton. Maidstone was founded as a nine hole course in 1891 and expanded to eighteen holes in 1899. The golf course was originally designed by William H. Tucker and is one of the first golf courses in the United States.

Description: TRUE FIRST EDITION printed by Pace Press for the members of the Maidstone Club, September 1941. LIMITED EDITION #13 of 500 printed copies. Personal copy SIGNED BY JAMES B. SKIDMORE (photo page 79) the acting secretary of the club in 1940. An extensive overview of the club from the founding families to the club’s Golden Jubilee. Illustrated with b&w photographs. This book was also printed in a facsimile edition in 1991 as part of a two volume set. Some wear to boards and sunning to edges. Corners bumped and spine edges worn. Some foxing to end pages, otherwise very good with interior clean and binding still strong. This is not the reprint, but the true first edition. RARE!

Bookseller Inventory # 25707

$750

Fifty Years Of The Maidstone Club
Rattray, Jeanette Edwards

Publisher: The Maidstone Club, Pace Press
Publication Date: 1941
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket, As Issued
Signed: Signed by James B. Skidmore
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Recent Acquisitions ·

Inspired by a desire to design a new pool for her own Hamptons home, Kelly Klein sought out and put together the most arresting and iconic photographs of swimming pools. The result was this unique and stunning book. Included are pools in all shapes, sizes, colors, and settings, from Tangiers and Miami, to the ancient magnificence of Hadrian’s Villa and the Côte d’Azur. An absolutely drop-dead gorgeous book with photography by renowned photographers, including Slim Aarons, Bruce Weber, Robert Mapplethorne, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Jaques Henri-Lartigue, and others…  Pools is a classic of modern design photography and an inspiration to aesthetes and creative homeowners alike.

Description: SIGNED BY KELLY KLEIN on the title page. Hard bound with dust jacket. TRUE FIRST PRINTING. A beautiful copy, bright and clean. 207 pages profusely illustrated with iconic images. A increasingly rare signed copy!

Bookseller Inventory# 25378

$600

Pools
Klein, Kelly

Publisher:  Knopf
Publication Date: 1992
Binding: Hardcover: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Signed: Signed by Kelly Klein
Edition: First  Edition

· Category: Architecture, Interior Design, Photography ·

Chris van Allsburg is a Caldecott Medal award-winning author and illustrator, renowned for works such as The Polar Express, Jumanji. The Garden of Abdul Gasazi was his first illustrated book. In this extraordinary, unusual, and unique picture book, Van Allsburg explores both the real and surreal worlds with incredible deftness. In doing so, he has created exquisite and beautiful images that will continue to haunt readers long after they have left the enchanted garden of Abdul Gasazi.

Description: Hard bound first printing with dust jacket. INSCRIBED & SIGNED BY CHRIS VAN ALLSBURG and his wife, with a small drawing of a paw print below “To Bettina, Happy Birthday your friends Chris and Lisa [paw print] cecil”. The author’s first book and a Caldecott Honor Award winner. First Edition, First printing with number line running down to 1. Cloth boards show some minor shelf wear and soiling. Unclipped ($8.95) dust jacket shows sunning to spine edge and some minor wear, otherwise very good. “This is without question one of the best and most original picture books in years”.– New York Times Book Review.

Bookseller Inventory # 23534

$450

The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
Van Allsburg, Chris

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: 1979
Binding: Hardbound
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Signed & Inscribed ·

Joan Miró was among the first artists to develop automatic drawing as a way to undo previous established techniques, and with Andre Masson represented the beginning of Surrealism as an art movement. However, Miró chose not to become an official member of the Surrealists in order to be free to experiment with other artistic styles.  He pursued his own interests in the art world, ranging from surrealism, to expressionism and color field painting.  His works drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy, are some of the most original of the 20th century. Miró was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona.  He studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts and the Academia Galí. He moved to Paris in 1920, where, under the influence of surrealist poets and writers, he evolved his mature style. The forms of his lithographs are organized against flat neutral backgrounds and are painted in a limited range of bright colors, especially blue, red, yellow, green, and black. Amorphous amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots, and curlicues, all positioned with seeming nonchalance. Miró later produced highly generalized, ethereal works in which his organic forms and figures are reduced to abstract spots, lines, and bursts of colors.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. First printing of the French edition with 11 ORIGINAL FULL COLOR LITHOGRAPHS, including 5 double page printed by Mourlot, Paris. 233 pages. Text in French. Cream cloth boards with title in black on spine edge. FOLD OUT LITHOGRAPH DUST JACKET in protective Brodart cover. RARE!.

Bookseller Inventory # 20795

$650

Joan Miro Lithographies
Leiris, Michel  &  Mourlot, Fernand

Publisher: A. C. Mazo
Publication Date: 1972
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Art, Featured Items ·

Ludwig Bemelmans was an Austrian-American author, an internationally known gourmet, writer and illustrator. He is remembered today for his Madeline books, six of which were published from 1939-1961. Throughout the 1920s Bemelmans struggled to become a recognized artist, while employed by the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. During this time he wrote and drew more than any other period of his life.  The Hotel Splendid, a thinly disguised version of the Ritz, defined him for an adult readership much the same way Madeline did for his younger audience. Besides his beloved Madeline books, Bemelmans was a contributor to Vogue, Town and Country, The New Yorker, Fortune, & Harper’s. Bemelmans also did many cover illustrations for The New Yorker, as well as Broadway set design, and several projects in Hollywood. He painted the murals at the New York’s Carlyle Hotel which are quite famous.

Description: HAND SIGNED AND NUMBERED BY LUDWIG BEMELMANS Hard bound “in the in the silk damask draperies of a famous New York Hotel”, with paste down title to spine edge. No dust jacket, as issued. #220 in a Limited First Edition of 245 numbered copies for sale. Some minor wear to edges and corners of silk cloth over boards, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding tight. The Hotel Splendide is a thinly disguised version of the Ritz Hotel, brimful of anecdotes, adventures, love tales, murder tales, and droll tales, from the limitless memory and imagination of a man who for many years looked out from his post behind the potted palms with the eyes of an artist and the heart of a poet. Illustrated throughout with the Author’s inimitable drawings. A scarce copy of the signed limited edition.

Bookseller Inventory # 27178

SOLD

Hotel Splendide
Bemelmans, Ludwig

Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 1941
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket, As Issued
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 1st Edition, Limited #220/245

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Description: This title has reached a sort of iconic status among interior decorators and designers. Hard bound first printing with dust jacket. Introduction by Diana Vreeland (probably the most important editor Vogue has ever had). Houses, furniture, collections, gardens and the daily lives of the social elite in America and Europe, all captured in over 200 photographs by Horst P. Horst. A very private look at the “beautiful people” with their homes and gardens arranged to perfection especially for Vogue. This copy shows some minor edge wear and soiling to dust jacket. Very small damp stain to end pages, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding tight. Scarce!

Bookseller Inventory # 26906

SOLD

Vogue’s Book of Houses, Gardens, People
Lawford, Valentine

Publisher: Viking
Publication Date:1968
Binding:Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition:Very Good
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·

Collected from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, arguably the greatest collection of primitive art in the world. This book – six years in the making – was published on the occasion of the touring exhibition of the Barbier-Mueller collection, in association with the Dallas Museum of Fine Art and the L.A. County Museum of Art exhibitions.

Description:
Hard bound with dust jacket. 238 pages with 72 illustrations, and 39 full-page color plates. A scarce and sought after title on the extraordinary sculptural  art of the West African nation of Gabon. Text in English. One small tear to upper spine edge of dust jacket, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding tight.

Bookseller Inventory # 20877

SOLD

Ancestral Art of Gabon: From the Collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum
Perrois, Louis

Publisher: Barbier-Mueller Museum
Publication Date: 1985
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Recently Sold ·