Search Results: New Arrivals July 2022 from Reginald C. Williams Rare Books

Boston: H.O. Houghton, 1876. 8vo. 136 pp. With 6 folding lithographed plates and 10 text illustrations. Original publisher's cloth, author and title in gilt. Small abrasions on front cover; small red sticker on front pastedown, otherwise an excellent copy.First edition. In a ground-breaking American work, Dwight allows students to look at the entire head "as a whole, as it exists during life." Each aspect, the skull, the brain and the membranes of the brain, facial skeleton, nose, mouth, cheeks chin, jaw, ears spine and circulation within the head are addressed and treated. Dwight (1843-1911), grandson of John Collins Warren, graduated from Harvard Medical School. He worked abroad in the laboratory at Ruedinger of Munich where he learned the technique of examining frozen microscopical sections, which he introduced into the United States on his return. This book was succeeded by his Frozen sections of a child (1881). He succeeded Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Parkman Professorship of Anatomy, a… Read More

8vo. [viii], 180 pp. 16 full-page lithographed plates, 5 of which are heightened in gilt. Publisher's contemporary patterned marbled paper boards. Edges lightly rubbed, Some light foxing, but overall a very good copy with the plates clean and bright. Now housed in a custom slipcase.First edition, a curious attempt to devise a system of anthropology and psychology based exclusively on observation of deaf-mutes. Building on the sociological work of Kaspar Hauser, the authors, director and instructor at the Prague Institute for Deaf-Mutes, assert that the actions of the deaf and dumb take place in a sort of vacuum in which the true spiritual nature of man can be witnessed. They argue that gestures and facial expressions are the language of the soul and are the key in understanding the relationship between the body and spirit. The first nine illustrations show men expressing various emotions by way of body language and hand signals. The other six are almost psychedelic, portraying thought and will as a… Read More

PRESS COPY WITH PUBLISHERS STATIONARY SHEET inserted. First edition. Slight soiling on top edge else fine in fine dust wrapper. One of the best books of the Vietnam War, a series of reports by the author who was a correspondent for *Esquire* magazine. Though consider part of the New Journalism movement, Herr readily acknowledged that many of the characters and dialogue were fictional creations based on the people he met while on assignment, including Sean Flynn (son of Errol Flynn) and Dana Stone, who disappeared after their capture by the Viet Cong. Herr would later write the narration in *Apocalypse Now* and be credited in the screenplay for *Full Metal Jacket*. First editions in nice condition have become quite uncommon, this is an exceptional copy.

8vo., publisher's red cloth, 510 pages. From the private Library of D.H. Appleby with a date stamp (approx. 5 cm x 2 cm & reads September 1958) on lightly foxed end papers. A shelving grid type file stamp approx.3 cm x 5 cm on rear of title page. The cover is in excellent condition under a bright dust jacket with very light wear, also a very faint typed year number on spine (1957). A couple of very minor browning marks to closed foredge (hardly noticeable). Doctor Zhivago Collins and Harvill Press 1958 English translation of the 1957 edition. Translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari . Octavo, 510pp. First edition in English, published one year after its first appearance (in Italian translation) and the same year as the first Russian edition, of Pasternak s sweeping story of political and emotional upheaval in Revolutionary Russia. After years of what he described as his long silent duel with Stalin, Pasternak s main literary concern in the final decades of his life… his testament, a witness to the… Read More

Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.First edition of this epic saga of the American Dream, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber, basis for the 1956 Oscar-winning film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson & James Dean."One of the 20th century's most popular writers" Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel So Big in 1925 and throughout her career consistently wrote "the broad-based saga of America… a vision of America as a land of possibilities, a belief in the American Dream" (ANB). Thirteen years from initial idea to publication, her best-known novel Giant provoked both critical praise and fury, leading the New York Times reviewer to conclude that "when Texans read what she has written about them they won't like Ferber… [yet] almost everyone else is going to revel in these pages." The 1956 film adaptation starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean, who died before the film's release, and the movie earned legendary director George Stevens his second Oscar for… Read More

First edition. Fine in fine dustwrapper. A superior copy, the white jacket is in much nicer than usual condition.The novel is often described as Kafkaesque, but Nabokov claimed that at the time he wrote the book, he was unfamiliar with German and "completely ignorant" of Franz Kafka's work. Nabokov interrupted his work on The Gift in order to write Invitation to a Beheading, describing the creation of the first draft as "one fortnight of wonderful excitement and sustained inspiration." Some scholars have argued that the central plot of Invitation to a Beheading has its roots in Chernyshevski, a character from The Gift. Another view is that the novel functions as a roman à clef with the Platonic Socrates as its target.While Nabokov stated in an interview that of all his novels, he held the greatest affection for Lolita, it was for Invitation to a Beheading that he held the greatest "esteem".

Thick 8vo. xx, 563, [1] pp., plus 2 pp. publ. ads. Color map frontisp., 2 color maps, 23 woodcut-engraved maps, text maps & diagrams. Green pebbled publisher's cloth, gilt armorial front cover, gilt lettering & ruling on spine. First edition of one of Wallace's major works, which includes the first theory of continental glaciation based on a combination of geographical and astronomical causes, a discussion of island classification, and a survey of world-wide island faunas and floras. Freeman A1016; Norman 2179An excellent copy showing minor wear, & lightly tanned pages.

Small 4to, 9"x11" tall [8] Lxx [2] 302 [2]pp. Full contemporary calf skillfully rebacked with five raised bands on the spine with the label bearing gilt titles. Boards with gilt ruled borders and large gilt armorial to the center of both boards. All edges gilt, marbled endpapers with bookplate on both front pastedown and ffep, engraved portrait of Bacon pasted to blank facing the page, internally clean and bright with good wide margins. Lacks the dedication leaf which was canceled due to the death of William III before the publication of this work but does have the final errata and advertisement leaf. This copy being from the small paper issue; ESTC N476823. Although best remembered for his contribution to natural philosophy, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English statesman and philosopher who served as both Solicitor General and Lord Chancellor. After being made Solicitor General in 1607 and thereafter was at or near the heart of James' administration, although high office was risky in a Jacobean… Read More

Octavo, contemporary calf boards. Half-title in vol-II, Gilt decorated spines with red and black leather labels. An attractive set. First edition of Hester Thrale Piozzi s significant selection of Dr. Johnson s erudite and entertaining letters the first publication and canonization of a large body of his correspondence uncut in original boards. Samuel Johnson once hailed Hester Thrale, later Piozzi, as "if not the wisest woman in the world… undoubtedly one of the wisest" (Allibone, 1601). She met him in 1765; he became a frequent houseguest, and she "was flattered by the attentions of this literary lion who took her sufficiently seriously as a poet not only to praise and criticize her efforts but also to suggest collaboration. With Johnson she was soon translating Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy… She assisted him in the preparation of his Journey to the Western Islands, and Johnson acknowledged that several of the lives in his Lives of the Poets… owed as much to her conversation as to her… Read More

Small 8vo, pp xix, [1], 363, [1], half title present, full calf, Morocco label. At least two other editions in 1781. Light foxing, spine worn at the crown, with outer hinge crack but binding still solid, bit scuffed, some staining, refreshed label to style. FIRST EDITION, an influential classic of Eighteen Century 'liberal' educational practice which went through eleven editions before the end of the century, by then expanded into two volumes. This first printing by no means common, with 9 locations in UK and 5 USA in ESTC. A decent copy of an important and scarce work.

FIRST EDITION. Octavo. xxxi,336, [15]pp. Index, Gilt-tooled full contemporary brown calf, red title-label with gold lettering. Raised bands. Frontispiece engraving of Thomas More. Title-page printed in red and black. A very good fresh copy which seldom surfaces in collectible condition. A captivating account of the life of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). More was an English lawyer, statesman, author, social philosopher as well as a noted Renaissance humanist. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary, ideal island nation and gave rise to a literary genre, utopian and dystopian fiction, which features ideal societies or perfect cities, or their opposite. He was also an important counselor to King Henry VIII and in the last years of his life serves as Lord Chancellor (1529-32). More opposed Henry VIII separation from the papal church and denied that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England. In 1534 he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his refusal… Read More

First edition, a rare copy in original state, of Cauchy's great memoir on the theory of functions of a complex variable (pp. 599-799), submitted to the Académie des Sciences on 22 August 1814 but not published until 1827. "In 1814 he submitted to the French Academy the treatise on definite integrals that was to become the basis of the theory of complex functions" (DSB). "Between 1814 and 1831, the great French mathematician A. L. Cauchy created pratically single-handedly a new branch of pure mathematics. Complex function theory was and remains of central importance, and its creation marked the start of one of the most exciting periods in the development of mathematics" (Smithies, Cauchy and the Creation of Complex Function Theory, 1997). "In his introduction to the 1814 memoir, Cauchy remarks that the solution of many problems reduces to the evaluation of definite integrals, many curious and useful results having been obtained by Euler, Laplace and Legendre. Some of the evaluations of integrals by… Read More

Octavo, A beautiful Contemporary full decorative dark blue morocco binding, elaborately gilt decorated spine and boards, raised bands, All edges gilt. No previous ownership inscriptions. Housed in green clamshell box with a marbled interior and a black morocco label. FIRST EDITION of this collection of works by these three Romantic poets. Comprises the first collected edition of Shelley, the first collected edition of Keats, and only the second collected edition of Coleridge, with many poems published for the first time. With frontispiece portrait of the three poets. This edition was published in Paris because the poets lacked international copyright protection and no royalties needed to be paid. However, Galignani in fact worked closely with friends and relatives of the poets to create these three exhaustive collections. The frontispiece portrait is the first printed portrait of Shelley. MacGillivray B1. Peck ii, 440. A scarce and desirable copy in a beautiful and very appropriate period binding.

First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine Condition/No Dust Jacket. Clean brown covers with gilt lettering on front and spine, lightly rubbed over joints, spine-ends and corners, sound binding, prize plate for "Rugby Engineering Society Session 1907-8 Williams Premium awarded to H O Eurich" and another small pasted label, clean black end-papers, clean pages. Advertisements and catalogue at rear. Contains black and white illustrations. From 1904 to 1914 Soddy was lecturer in physical chemistry and radioactivity in the University of Glasgow. Here he did much practical chemical work on radioactive materials. During this period he evolved the so-called "Displacement Law", namely that emission of an alpha-particle from an element causes that element to move back two places in the Periodic Table. His peak was reached in 1913 with his formulation of the concept of isotopes, which stated that certain elements exist in two or more forms which have different atomic weights but which are indistinguishable… Read More

Octavo, original red pictorial cloth, original dust jacket.First edition of Eisele's biography of the frontiersman, gunfighter, lawman and scout "Wild Bill" Hickok, with line engraved frontispiece portrait of Hickok, photographic portrait of the author, and ten wood-engraved illustrations, in the scarce original dust jacket."The event that brought Hickok both fame and notoriety and earned him his nickname was the killing of David McCanles at Rock Creek, Nebraska, in 1861… A dramatized recounting of McCanles's death written by George Ward Nichols appeared in an 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly. This story catapulted Wild Bill Hickok into the national limelight and made him the central figure of many dime novels" (ANB). Eisele's hagiography pushes Nichols' account even further into the fantastic, incorporating similar exaggerated accounts by J.W. Buel and Buffalo Bill in his 1879 Autobiography. Eisele's biography is nonetheless an entertaining account, and representative of 20th-century myth-making… Read More

Large quarto, original gilt-stamped brown cloth, & original dust jacket.First trade edition of Lawrence's account of his legendary part in the Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, in original dust jacket.Even though "Seven Pillars is remarkably accurate as a military history," its blending of epic heroic adventure, psychological insight, and spiritual transformation make it the literary treasure that Lawrence intended it to be, deserving Winston Churchill's praise as one of "the greatest books ever written in the English language" (Wilson, 55).A book with a fascinating publishing history. This is the first general edition,of this fascinating book, A very good copy bound in original brown buckram, crossed sword gilt decoration to front board and spine with a very good dustwrapper non-price clipped 30/- some minor wear to top edge. The d/w is now somewhat elusive. Printed at the Alden Press, bound by A.W. Bain. 672pp with index, a handsome book for a trade edition. Laid… Read More

First edition. Hardcover. First edition. Hardcover in blue cloth stamped in black. Photo illustrated endpapers. 249 pp. Very good or somewhat better with strong, bright covers, 1927 Christmas gift inscription top of front free endpaper, some rippling to the upper outer corner of the text. In the uncommon original color illustrated dust jacket which is near fine with some shallow wear at the spine extremities and some rubbing along the flap folds and a small chip at the heel of the spine bottom. Novelization of the 1927 Paramount Pictures movie that was the winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Hardcover in sky blue cloth stamped in black. Illustrated with scenes from the film starring Clara Bow and Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen. A real nice copy.

8°. XV, 557 p. folded with 1 multip. Card and 116, partly whole. Fig. Green OLn. with gold embossed. Lid and Back title, lid with red, gold embossed linen application. First and last pages slightly foxing, otherwise well preserved and near fine. EA. Henze I, 268f. - First edition of the travel report of the "rapless English world travelers" (Henze) Isabella Bird (1831-1904), married Bishop. She writes in the foreword: "These journeys in China [concluding in 1897], of which the following pages are the record, were undertaken for recreation and interest exclusively, after some months of severe traveling in Korea." Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904), writing under the name "Mrs J. F. Bishop," journeyed around China in 1896-97, including eight months spent on the Yangtze, as part of a three-year tour of East Asia. In the present work. She chronicles her journey along the river westwards from Shanghai, via Ningbo, Hangzhou, Nankou, and Yichang. At Wanxian, Bird left the river and headed due west to the… Read More