Search Results: Authors starting with B from 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop

Gelatin silver print. 14 x 14 in. image on 16 x 20 in. sheet. Light wear. Signed by Barboza and titled "Imamu Baraka – poet – 76" by the photographer.
This is a splendid Anthony Barboza portrait of Amiri Baraka. Baraka's illustrious and controversial 50-year career, in which he first achieved fame as Leroi Jones, encompassed poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and activism.
Critic Arnold Rampersad counted Baraka with Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison "as one of the eight figures … who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture."
Anthony Barboza (b. 1944) is perhaps most famous for his portraits of musicians, dancers, and writers and for his photojournalist, fashion, and editorial spreads in countless magazines. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cornell University, the Brooklyn… Read More

Two volumes. Original decorated cloth designed by Mario Prassinos. Fine.
FIRST EDITIONS. The two volumes were published months apart in 1949, each in an edition of 2000 numbered copies (from a total edition of 2,150).
This landmark of feminism presents a scathing analysis of the history and treatment of women in the patriarchal West. Beauvoir begins by asking, "What is woman?" She argues that man is the default, while woman is Other: "Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not herself but as relative to him."
"To state the question is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: 'I am a woman'; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man …"
"The Second Sex was… Read More

Two volumes. Original decorated cloth designed by Mario Prassinos. Fine.FIRST EDITIONS. The two volumes were published months apart in 1949, each in an edition of 2000 numbered copies (from a total edition of 2,150).
This landmark of feminism presents a scathing analysis of the history and treatment of women in the patriarchal West. Beauvoir begins by asking, "What is woman?" She argues that man is the default, while woman is Other: "Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not herself but as relative to him."
"To state the question is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: 'I am a woman'; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man …"
"The Second Sex was published in… Read More

Signed by Carter and Begin. Menachem Begin was awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, together with Anwar Sadat, "for their work in laying a foundation for future peace" in the Middle East. The framework, reached at Camp David, was facilitated by Jimmy Carter. The Nobel award called Carter "the masterbuilder responsible for the bridge that had to be built between Egypt and Israel."
Carter would have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 with Begin and Sadat but for a missed nomination deadline. See "How Carter Lost Out on the Nobel Peace Prize: A Missed Deadline" (New York Times). Carter was awarded the prize in 2002.
Provenance: Calligraphic inscription to Ernest W. Michel, the noted Holocaust survivor who covered the Nuremberg trials as a journalist and later was a prominent Jewish leader in New York.Additionally signed by the photographer, Robert A. Cumins, one of the leading photojournalists and documentary photographers of the second half of the 20th century. 9 x 14 in. Color photograph. Framed. A… Read More

This splendid, enormous hand-painted map of Beijing shows and names the main streets, official residences of imperial family members, important buildings, temples, geographical features, fortifications and garrisons of the Forbidden, Imperial and Inner Cities.
Only three other examples of this remarkable form of map painted on silk are known, and this is the only example in private hands. Professor K. Tanaka (Sugiura) of Kyoto University, the leading authority on these maps, has located only four examples on silk: National Library of China, Royal Geographical Society, Royal Ontario Museum, and the present example (three copies on paper are known). The National Library of China map on silk, the only one to include the Outer City, was a highlight of the 2016 exhibition at the National Library of Australia, Celestial Empire: Life in China, 1644-1911. That map appeared as a frontispiece in the associated book of the same name.
The map appears to have been drawn primarily to identify and locate… Read More

First edition of the second book by Asher Benjamin, America's first great writer on architecture. In the introduction, Benjamin notes that "the style of building in this country differs very considerably from that of Great Britain" and that architects who rely on European publications are wasting their money. He concludes, "we feel confident that this publication will be found to contain more useful information for the American workman than all the European works which have appeared in this country."

"Through his books 'late colonial' details and designs were broadcast throughout New England … and there is scarcely a village which in moulding profiles, cornice details, church spire, or farm-house does not reflect his influence" (DAB). The plates in this work inspired countless builders, and they have been used to identify Benjamin as the architect of a number of important buildings in Massachusetts and Connecticut. "Benjamin's plates formed a collection harmonious and almost always in perfect… Read More

These catalogues from the golden age of English book collecting are filled with landmark early printed books, books printed on vellum, illuminated manuscripts, and more. The Dent library contained "numerous volumes of the greatest beauty, several illuminated manuscripts, … other books printed on vellum" (De Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts). Both auction catalogues are fully priced in manuscript with prices realized and buyer names.
The great names of English bookselling predominate including Thorpe and Payne. Sir Thomas Phillipps attended the Williams sale personally. The eight lots acquired by him included lot 355, the Gundulf Bible, for ÂŁ189 and lot 749, the illustrated Gospels of Mathilda of Tuscany, for ÂŁ172, now in the Morgan Library.Three volumes in two: Dent: [ii], 84, 94, (2); Williams: 197, (1) errata, 8 "Books omitted." Contemporary half calf. Joints cracked but held by cords, some wear. Untrimmed. Both auction catalogues are fully priced in manuscript with… Read More

545 volumes, neatly bound in 51 volumes in red and blue buckram, preserving original wrappers. Very good condition.
Founded in 1898, Goodspeed's published its first catalogue in 1899. For decades to come the firm would be a dominant force in American bookselling. These catalogues are a witness to that golden age.
"Goodspeed's was unquestionably the dominant firm on the scene. Its prominence, both locally and internationally, coupled with the fact that the shop, in good Yankee tradition, kept its secrets to itself, made Goodspeed's the subject of frequent rumors and speculations in the local trade, many of them unfounded and not all of them kind. Indeed, the shop, had a kind of mystique which lured me strongly, as it had countless others" (David Holmes, preface to Goodspeed, The Bookseller's Apprentice).
The following passage from Goodspeed's memoir gives a taste of the treasures to be found in these volumes:
"But I think that the prize offering of the period by Goodspeed's was in Catalogue… Read More

FIRST EDITION of this classic in the history of quantum mechanics, "Planck's Law and Light Quantum Hypothesis" (pp. 178-181 in vol. 26).
Bose sent this paper to Einstein, who translated it into German for this initial publication with the comment "In my opinion Bose's derivation of the Planck formula signifies an important advance." In this paper he "succeeded in deriving the Planck blackbody radiation law without reference to classical electrodynamics. Einstein's generalization of Bose's method led to the first of two systems of quantum statistical mechanics, known as the Bose-Einstein statistics. Paul Dirac later coined the term 'boson' for particles that obey these statistics" (DSB).
"With their work Bose and Einstein established the field of quantum statistics one year before the appearance of quantum mechanics" (Brandt, The Harvest of a Century)
This volume also contains three papers by Werner Heisenberg.Complete vols. 25-26. Contemporary half calf. Near fine, without any… Read More

Original wrappers. Minor dampstain at end, foxed. Fine.
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. This is a major paper on the founding publications on photography by Daguerre and Talbot (as well as those of Netto and Moser) and the history of the new art photography.
Sir David Brewster was a pioneer of photography. He invented the lenticular stereoscope, the kaleidoscope, the binocular camera, and other instruments. The work, published anonymously, is "an ambitious, wide-ranging account of the development of photography" to 1843 (Smith, Disciples of Light).
A rare survival in original wrappers.

½ plate daguerreotype, in original case, covers separated, with Mayall's gilt logo for his Daguerreotype Institution at 433 Strand. Affixed to the verso of the plate is a "Portrait Check" from the "American Daguerreotype Institution, 433, West Strand" dated in manuscript October 11, 1848 and with the name of the subject, "J. R. Brodhead, Esq." The plate is in excellent condition, with rich tones.
A splendid half-plate daguerreotype of Herman Melville's advisor and agent John Brodhead. John Romeyn Brodhead (1814-1873) was a historian and a member of the American diplomatic corps. Best remembered for his services as Herman Melville's agent in London, Brodhead had known Melville and his family since their youth. Gansevoort Melville, secretary of the American legation in London, served as his brother's literary agent for the publication of Typee. When Gansevoort died in May 1846, his boyhood friend John Brodhead was appointed to succeed him.
Brodhead's literary relationship with the young… Read More

This extraordinary manuscript is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's heavily revised autograph working notebook for The Seraphim, and Other Poems, the book that first brought her fame.
This notebook contains drafts of all of the major poems in The Seraphim, published by Saunders and Otley in 1838. This work helped to establish her as one of the most important poets of her day. In addition, the manuscript contains nine other poems that remain unpublished as well as countless otherwise unknown lines not used in the published text.
This visually dramatic notebook is crowded with Elizabeth Barrett's manuscript revisions, making it a vital untapped source for the study of the poet's working methods and artistic development. She has filled the notebook's pages with her verse in her minuscule hand. Painstaking revisions reflect the intensity of her process. Many abandoned passages—some quite long—are known only from the survival of this volume.
The Seraphim was the first work that Elizabeth Barrett issued under… Read More

Buck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 for "notable works which pave the way to a human sympathy passing over widely separated racial boundaries and for the studies of human ideals which are a great and living art."Gelatin silver print (16 x 20 in.). Archivally framed. Estate Edition, a limited edition of 20 copies, embossed and numbered.
$900 unframed; framed: $1,300

Albumen print on paper. Approx, 16 x 20 in. Very good condition. Archivally framed.
John Burroughs (1837-1921) was, after Henry David Thoreau, the greatest American nature essayist. He played an important role in the development of he American conservation movement. Burroughs is also remembered for his close friendship with Walt Whitman, whom he resembled in old age. "Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral" (John Burroughs).