Search Results: Authors starting with E from Honey & Wax Booksellers

Madison, Wisconsin: Dangling Participle Press, 1998. First edition of this dreamlike artist's book about travel, memory, and storytelling, "a search for what connects people," number 33 of 35 signed copies printed and bound by Matt Eberle at his Dangling Participle Press. Rudy & Midge was inspired by a collection of midcentury travel ephemera found at an estate sale. The densely collaged pages retrace the adventures of the unknown Rudy and Midge, represented in blurred outline, as they make their way from Havana to Mexico City, San Francisco to Florida and Ireland. Their story, captured in layers of letters, souvenirs, and photographs, is intertwined with the artist's memories of his own grandparents and the trauma of the Kennedy assassination. "The arrival of Oswald" looms over Rudy and Midge's carefree travels from the very beginning of the book: "all of the dates on the vacation receipts and travel brochures abruptly end in 1963." In the colophon, Eberle reveals that he later learned that Midge… Read More

Schenectady, New York: General Electric, 1965. First edition of this enthusiastic recruitment initiative from General Electric, aimed at high school and college students: "The future clearly belongs to those who understand the computer." An employee profile page serves as a strategic welcoming call to students of all backgrounds, depicting women and people of color working in computer manufacturing, program analysis, testing, and training at General Electric. Highlighting real-life challenges like employee wage management and mass transit design, the booklet celebrates the computer's ability to solve social, industrial, and scientific problems "while eliminating much of the drudgery of mathematical calculation." Lighthearted illustrations by Bill Charmatz, known for his work for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Time, accompany discussions of "Computers on the Job," "Programming," and "Symbolic Languages," among other topics. A bright, near-fine copy of this aspirational artifact of the early computer… Read More

Barnard, Vermont: Vermont Toy Works, 1980. Two sets of brightly painted counting blocks, proportionally sized, each labeled with its corresponding numeral and that number spelled out. When housed in their trays, each column of blocks must add up to ten. Out of their trays, the blocks can be used to solve simple addition and subtraction problems, or for free play. Vermont Toy Works was a short-lived woodcraft toy company active in the 1980s: it is possible that one of the sets here was a prototype for the manufacture of the other. A very appealing survival, from both an educational and a design standpoint. Note: these blocks are heavy! Shipping at cost. Two sets of painted wooden blocks, each containing twenty-eight proportionally sized blocks numbered 1-10, housed in two wooden trays: the larger tray measuring 14.75 x 13.25 inches, the smaller 11 x 9.75 inches. "Vermont Toy Works" stamp on bottom of both trays. Light general wear.

Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1858. First edition of George Eliot's first published work of fiction, three related stories of love and loss in an English village: "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton," "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story," and "Janet's Repentance." The stories first appeared anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine in 1857, and were published together the following year as the work of "George Eliot," the first use of that pen name by Mary Ann Evans. Upon the book's appearance, Charles Dickens wrote Blackwood to congratulate the unknown author and to predict, correctly, that George Eliot would eventually be revealed as a woman. These early stories sound the depths of feeling experienced by everyday people, foreshadowing Eliot's major achievement in Middlemarch: "At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with… Read More

London: Novello and Company, 1870. First edition of this collection of fifty-four traditional English nursery rhymes and songs, set to original music by J.W. Elliott and illustrated with wood engravings by the Brothers Dalziel. Featured rhymes include "Jack and Jill," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," "Little Bo-Peep," "Little Jack Horner," "Humpty Dumpty," "Simple Simon," "Sing a Song of Sixpence," "Taffy Was a Welshman," "Georgie Porgie," and "The Death and Burial of Cock Robin." The publisher's preface notes that "among the old favourites a few new aspirants to popularity will be found; but it is hoped that their presence will be considered an additional attraction, and in no way lessen the pretensions of the present volume to be considered a compendium of National Nursery Rhymes." See Goldman, Victorian Illustrated Books 1850-1870, 235. A very good example of popular Victorian song and illustration. Single volume, measuring 10.25 x 7.25 inches: [8], 111, [1]. Original… Read More

Leeds: Bean, Stationer, 1865. Two highly decorative penmanship albums produced by a Victorian schoolboy in Oldham, outside Manchester. Each album contains six examples. The first volume includes three poems and two pages of neatly copied practice sentences: "Eminence demands our most earnest endeavours" and "Magnanimous persons deserve great commendation." The final page contains the sample text of a promissory note, dated February 5, 1865. The second volume includes three poems ("Flowers," "Liberty," and "Various Stanzas on Spring"), each with a hand-colored printed heading, and three practice sentences: "Endeavour to merit esteem and commendation;" "Procrastination often ruins commercial transactions;" and "Concealed resentment is sometimes most dangerous." Unusually handsome examples of Victorian educational practice. Two oblong folio volumes, measuring 9.25 x 12 inches: [16]. Original glazed moiré card wrappers with gilt-embossed card frames and scenic chromolithographs (windmills in a field, a… Read More

England, nineteenth century. Original silhouette drawing of a prisoner in the hands of two captors, confronted by his accuser, with a woman pleading (presumably for mercy) at the accuser's feet. The figures have the look of shadow puppets, perhaps inspired by a magic lantern show. An evocative piece of Victorian ephemera. Ink and graphite on paper, mounted to a backing sheet. Image measures 5 x 10 inches, matted to 8 x 13.5 inches. Light discoloration to righthand and lower edges of original paper.

United States, late nineteenth century. Six hand-painted signs used by an American dance orchestra to alert the audience to the proper steps. John Spitzer observes that in nineteenth-century New York, "hundreds of orchestras played on a daily basis in theaters, restaurants and beer gardens, concert halls, circuses, and amusement parks. The ubiquity of the orchestra in nineteenth-century American cities forms a striking contrast to the rather narrow range of venues to which twenty-first-century orchestras are confined." Each sign features the name of a different dance on each side: Polka, Schottische, March, Quadrille, Waltz, Mazurka, Varieties, Gavotte, Lancers, York, Triange, and Selection. These social dances reflect the midcentury influx of immigrants, especially Germans, who shaped the popular American musical scene. While the orchestra that commissioned these signs is unknown, the carrying case bears the initials "AEO." See also: American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Spitzer,… Read More

England, nineteenth century. Original silhouette drawing of a swooning maiden, what appears to be her armed abductor, and an unarmed (but dashing) rescuer striking a power pose with closed fists. The figures have the look of shadow puppets, perhaps inspired by a magic lantern show. An evocative piece of Victorian ephemera. Ink and graphite on paper, mounted to a second sheet, the whole mounted again to a backing sheet. Image measures 5 x 7 inches, matted to 8 x 10 inches. Occasional stray speck to paper.

England, nineteenth century. Four original silhouette drawings on storybook themes: a turbaned group in Eastern costume with a hookah; an armed highwayman and his target; two figures dueling; and a traveler with pack and pipe. The figures have the look of shadow puppets, perhaps inspired by a magic lantern show. An evocative piece of Victorian ephemera. Four ink and graphite illustrations on paper, mounted to a single backing sheet. Entire sheet matted to 13 x 9.75 inches. Occasional light discoloration to paper, edge of one drawing creased.

France: no publisher, 1950. Commercially produced graph paper workbook for French design students, with striking blue wrappers lettered "Dessin." A fine example of an ephemeral midcentury classroom aid, never used. Side-stitched design workbook, measuring 8.5 x 6.75 inches: [16]. Original deep blue wrappers lettered in black, sewn with white thread; leaves printed with a grid pattern.