Search Results: World War II from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

New York: Viking Press, 1945. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The Blue Danube can best be described as a gentle satire of Nazi Germany, belonging somewhere on the continuum of works about the Second World War with Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-5 and Mel Brooks' The Producers. He treats the horrors in a completely deadpan fashion. Residents are sent to Dachau in purely administrative fashion with "the usual notifications." A deposed party official's suicide is interrupted by his replacement seeking to buy his pre-war uniform made of good cloth and his gun; a boatful of school children who drown as the result of a Nazi party scheme don't get a second thought from the organizers, one of whom Bemelmans calls "the animal with a voice." The novel is set behind the front lines in Regensburg, where Bemelmans grew up (he was born in a French-speaking part of Austria that is now in Italy; English was his third language after French and German). "For most of those at home-the women, the old… Read More

Tokyo: Showatosho, 1942. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. In all likelihood, this is the first published book to describe the internment of the Japanese in the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Taguchi (1905-1956), a Japanese documentary filmmaker and cinematographer, had been in the United States for several years making newsreels for American studios; he was also the head of the US office of the Nippon News Film Corporation. In early December 1941, FBI agents arrested and questioned Taguchi. He was imprisoned on Ellis Island along with other Japanese, German and Italian nationals, all of whom had also been classified as enemy aliens. Taguchi was returned to Japan in 1942 as part of a negotiated prisoner exchange with the Japanese government. He published this blow-by-blow account of the indignities of the process in December 1942. Taguchi's experience at the start of the war was similar to that of many Japanese immigrants in the US. As far as I am aware, no other… Read More

1945. Ephemera. Fine. Original pen-and-ink cartoon drawing of a seaside village, surrounded by mountains, with smoke rising from the center of the town. Sheet roughly 8 by 6 inches, drawing 5-1/2 by 3-1/2 inches. Probably from 1943-1946, when Williams was a staff illustrator for the New Yorker magazine. Only seven of his drawings ever appeared in the magazine during his three years there, but it did lead to a connection with New Yorker writer E. B. White, who recommended Williams to illustrate his children's books, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. Small red mark in upper right. Signed "GW" in ink and "Garth Williams" in pencil.

Tokyo: Rokko Shuppanbu, 1943. First Edition. Trade paperback. Very good. A very scarce wartime history of the Japanese in California that argues that the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans was a symptom of the same pervasive anti-Japanese attitudes among Americans that had contributed to the Second World War. The author, according to Yuji Ichioka writing in Before Internment (p. 263), was an "Issei who had lived in California for many years, working as a newspaperman for Japanese immigrant newspapers... The outbreak of the Pacific War found Ebina in Tokyo because he had returned to Japan in November 1941. At the beginning he was employed part-time by NHK Radio to write anti-American radio scripts and served as a commentator on the arrest and detention of Issei leaders and the eventual mass internment of the entire West Coast Japanese California." Ebina's December 1943 book, "Kariforunia to Nihonjin...rehashed the history of anti-Japanese racism in California and attributed the internment… Read More

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943. Ephemera. Very good. One of the classic food-related posters of the Second World War, encouraging home canning to preserve food for the winter. 16 by 22-1/2 inches. OWI Poster No. 77; O-533993. Old folds, as issued; beginning to split along one fold. This is an original World War Two poster, not a reproduction. Ships flat.

[Washington, DC?]: [U.S. Government Printing Office?], 1942. Ephemera. Fine. A poster announcing the beginning of rationing during the Second World War, accompanied by a notice that consumers will need to report how much canned and bottled goods they have in their pantries. The poster concludes with the admonition, "Do not buy more than you need." (The short-term shortages at the beginning of the Covid shutdown in 2020 suggest the potential for economic disruption during the war). Rationing and consumer price controls were key homefront efforts to manage the US economy. 14 by 20 inches. A fine example; never folded. Ships flat. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction.

New York: General Cable Corporation, 1945. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A survey of the propaganda and motivational posters designed and published by the General Cable Corporation during the Second World War. The posters are documented with 33 high quality full-page reproductions printed with spot colors (rather than four-color CMYK separations). On the page facing each poster is a brief bibliographical details about print runs, distribution, and the reason for the poster. This is one of the best books of WWII posters from the period. Many of the posters depicted had print runs in the hundreds of copies and are rarely seen. The remainder of the book offers examples of General Cable's military products produced during the war, illustrated with sepia halftone photographs. About 120 pages; color frontispiece. 9 by 12 inches. Each copy is numbered on a tipped in limitation sticker at the back. The highest number seen by your cataloguer is ca. 2500. First edition (first printing). Some wear… Read More

Ephemera. Near fine. A small homefront poster from the Second World War promoting ride sharing and, by extension, conserving gasoline and rubber, the natural supplies of which had mostly been seized by the Japanese army. 8-3/8 by 10-15/16 inches. Near fine to fine. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction.

[Washington, DC]: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942. Ephemera. Near fine. An attractive homefront poster from the Second World War encouraging Americans to recycle scrap metal for the war effort. The poster presents stylized silhouettes of a bomb, a tank, a battleship, and an anti-aircraft gun, each printed over a line drawing of a pile of scrap metal. 20 by 28-1/2 inches. Poster O-471153. Folded, as issued. A bit of creasing to the margins, else near fine. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction. Ships FOLDED.

[Washington, DC]: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944. Ephemera. Near fine. A poster to encourage the quick unloading of freight trains by railroad employees. The text on the back (verso) says, "It is designed for posting in freight yards, on shipping platforms, and around all other points of freight car loading and unloading operations." The poster, produced for the U.S. Office of Defense Transportation, is illustrated with a freight car with boxing gloves punching caricatures of Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo along with the exhortation: "Your government says 'Every hour saved in freight-car turnaround time means more cars available for the victory march to Berlin and Tokio.'" The artist, Fred G. Cooper, designed logos, posters, and did spot cartoons for magazines, particularly the original Life magazine. He is the subject of a monograph by Leslie Carbarga, The Lettering and Design of F. G. Cooper. This poster is uncommon. 20-1/4 by 28 inches. Poster O-608225. A near fine example with minor… Read More

Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945. Ephemera. Near fine. A 12-by-18-inch "window emblem" poster from the federal effort during the Second World War to keep inflation in check. Text reads, "We charge only ceiling prices or less / We post ceiling price lists prominently / We welcome questions about our prices." This poster was intended for distribution to participating retail grocery stores that agreed to abide by published prices for commodities in short supply due to the war effort. The illustration for this poster shows Uncle Sam with his arms around the shoulders of a male merchant and a female customer. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction. A near fine copy with light creasing. Folded, as issued. SHIPS FOLDED.

1940. A fifth-grader's "army reports and pictures" documenting German military victories and leaders. Young Ms. Wolter was (apparently) assigned to collect newspaper articles about Adolf Hitler and military victories, which she pasted neatly into a blank school lesson book. The collection begins with a newspaper photograph of Josef Goebbels congratulating the U-boat commander Günther Prien for sinking the HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow in October 1939. The scrapbook continues with the siege of Warsaw, the occupation of Paris, and the Franco-Italian armistice. An interesting homefront propaganda project. 32 pages; 28 pages with newspaper cuttings, three blanks, one page with a few handwritten notes. 6-1/2 by 8 inches. Very good.

Cumberland, IA: Pterodactyl Press, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 7-7/8 by 11-1/4 inches. Poems for a spoken-word one-man performance about the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. The poems are printed one letter to a square on letterpress-printed graph paper. The format emphasizes Himmler's drive for precision. Published in an edition of 500 hardcover copies and an unknown number of copies in paper covers. Rather uncommon and given the precise printing required, an impressive demonstration of the printer's art. First edition (first printing). A spot of fading to front board, else fine in a very good, unprinted dust jacket with a few tears and chips.

Washington DC: United States Office of Price Administration, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944. Ephemera. Very good. A Second World War homefront poster encouraging Americans to participate in price-control efforts in order to keep inflation under control. The main graphic shows two women reaching for their baskets of groceries. The woman from 1918-the First World War-finds the basket out of reach. The "modern" 1944 woman can easily place her hands on food. According to the legend, these two scenarios are both based on the 53rd month of the war. Somewhat problematic, from a statistical point of view, is that in both cases the time period is based on the start of the wars in Europe; the US joined much later. However, this actually tends to understate the effectiveness of the management of the US economy during the Second World War, which was less after three years than that experienced in the first war after one year. The full text reads (ellipses in the original): Here's a war job all America… Read More

[Washington, DC]: Distributed by O.W.I. [Office of War Information] for the Office of Economic Stabilization, 1944. Ephemera. Very good. A rather fierce-looking poster encouraging women to participate in the federal efforts to control inflation driven by shortages during the Second World War. An illustration of a woman wearing an apron, her teeth and fist clenched dominate the poster. Below the image are a list of seven key actions: buy war bonds; pay taxes; get life insurance; reduce debt; buy only what is needed; comply with rationing; and cooperate with wage stabilization efforts. 20-1/8 by 28-5/16 inches. Small piece of upper left corner missing, short tears at the folds, thus very good. Folded for mailing, as issued. SHIPS FOLDED. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction.

[N.-pl.]: Published in Cooperation with the U.S. Government Fuel Conservation Campaign, 1943. Ephemera. Near fine. A homefront poster produced during the Second World War by private industry to promote the installation of insulation in houses. The text continues, "Install it yourself, flame proof cotton insulation." 14 by 20 inches. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction. A near fine copy, folded once, as issued. Small nick at bottom right corner.

Kyoto: Bunsen Shoin, 1929. A book tracing the history of US-Japanese relations focusing on the growth of anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States and the legal and diplomatic efforts to exclude and discriminate against Japanese immigrants. The author then turns to the growing possibility of a war in the Pacific between the two countries. The book fits into a nationalist, imperialist narrative that was growing in Japan throughout the 1920s which argued for the inevitability of a US-Japanese conflict (several Western scholars also published books on the likelihood of a Pacific War during this time). Tamura's work is very little known, with just one library holding (in Japan), despite this copy being a fifth printing, published four years after the first. The cover of the book has a Japanese flag on the front and a map of the Pacific Rim on the back, with lines showing distances between key locations. [6], [2], 169, [2] pages. OCLC: 703696048 (National Diet Library). Fifth printing. Old… Read More

Pasadena, CA: Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play, Pasadena Chapter, 1943. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very good. A reprint of an article from Harper's Magazine by a Navy doctor stationed in Hawaii who describes the response of the Japanese-American community to the attack on Pearl Harbor and to the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Coggins describes their efforts to demonstrate that they were loyal Americans, and he concludes with a report on the overwhelming number of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii who volunteered for the military. The publisher of this reprint was an organization that sprouted up in 1942 to defend the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans and to fight the anti-Japanese prejudice of so many white Americans. This pamphlet includes a brief introduction opposing race prejudice and promoting the patriotism of Japanese Americans. The final page includes a listing of Japanese Americans from Pasadena who had enlisted or volunteered for… Read More

London: MacDonald & Co. Ltd, 1944. First Edition. Leather bound. Fine. Long poems about the Second World War: The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Greece, The Battle of the Mediterranean, Battles Long Ago, and The Battle of the Atlantic. This is one of 250 specially-bound initialed and numbered copies issued in dark blue pebbled morocco stamped in gilt. 95 pages. First edition (first printing). A near fine copy with light wear to the corners. Previous owner's name in pencil on the first blank, dated March 1944, giving a clue to when this undated book was issued. This is copy 89 of 250 signed by Dunsany with the initial "D." Probably not issued in a dust jacket.

(N.-pl.): Sponsored by Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company in Cooperation with the U.S. Government, 1944. Ephemera. Near fine. A World War Two-era homefront poster from private industry urging compliance with federal energy conservation goals through the purchase of consumer products (i.e., storm windows). Compared to official government posters, business propaganda posters are rather scarce. This private poster, compared to official US posters, is also much more sexist than government-issued pieces. The central image shows a rear view of a woman in a suggestive pose bending at the waist while wearing a short skirt. Old man winter futilely blows cold air outside her window. A toddler crouches at her feet. 13-1/2 by 20 inches. Near fine. Never folded. Ships flat. This is an original World War II poster, not a reproduction.