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

London: William Heinemann, 1930. First edition, in the first state dust jacket, of Graham Greene's elusive second novel. After the success of his 1929 debut The Man Within, Greene was given an unusually large advance to write The Name of Action, which introduces key elements of his later work: espionage, revolution, a doomed love story. In this case, a callow young Englishman's plot to overthrow the German dictator is complicated by his infatuation with the man's wife: "'Mr. Chant, of - of South-West London -- offering the post of mistress to the wife of the Dictator of Trier. Doesn't it strike you as amusing - as,' she added fiercely, 'impertinent?'" A critical and commercial disappointment, The Name of Action was a source of embarrassment to Greene, who suppressed further publication: "I was trying to write my first political novel, knowing nothing of politics." A near-fine copy of a scarce book, in a remarkably fresh jacket. Single volume, measuring 7.25 x 4.5 inches: [8], 344. Original navy blue… Read More

Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1936. First edition of Graham Greene's thriller about a double-crossed assassin seeking revenge, published one month before the English edition titled "A Gun for Sale." The inspiration for the 1942 film noir classic starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, Greene's seventh novel follows the conflicting interests of a hired gun, the private eye on his trail, and the detective's fiancée, who gets drawn into the chase. The dust jacket's promise, "A Novel of Terror and Devotion," reflects the flashes of humanity that illuminate Greene's hardened characters: "They were a little quietened because each had known a man who was suddenly dead; but the knowledge they shared gave them a sense of companionship which was oddly sweet and reassuring. It was like feeling safe, like feeling in love without the passion, the uncertainty, the pain." Barzun & Taylor 1574. A sharp, near-fine copy of a crime fiction classic. Single volume, measuring 7.25 x 5 inches: [8], 293, [3].… Read More

London: William Heinemann, 1932. First edition, second issue, of Graham Greene's thriller, focused on an uneasy group of passengers on the Orient Express as they make their way from Ostend to Constantinople: "the windows shook and sparks flickered like match heads through the darkness." The first issue of the novel was suppressed by Heinemann in response to novelist J.B. Priestley's complaint that the character of "Q.C. Savory" was too obviously a caricature of himself. In this second issue, the character of "Q.C." is renamed "Quin." Following two commercially disappointing novels, Greene was determined to have a success with Stamboul Train: "for the first and last time in my life I deliberately set out to write a book to please, one which with luck might be made into a film." Greene has inscribed this copy with the rueful remark, "Not yet an Entertainment!" Stamboul Train would, however, be repeatedly adapted for film, radio, and television, most notably in the 1934 American picture Orient Express.… Read More

Brooklyn: Hanging Loose, 1967. Second number of this long-running little magazine devoted to emerging and underrepresented writers, founded in 1966 at the Brooklyn apartment of poet and contributing editor Denise Levertov, who had taught Jarrett and Laurie. Simultaneously democratic and ephemeral, its original format, a sheaf of loose mimeographed sheets tucked in a mailing envelope, inspired its name: "If you liked a poem, you could pin it to the wall. If you didn't like a poem, you could use it as a napkin." This number features poems by Marge Piercy and a story by Elia Katz, among others. The envelope, illustrated by Mimi Gross, is addressed to Indiana writer and early subscriber Roger Pfingston. Over the following decades, Hanging Loose would publish new writing by Dorothy Allison, Ha Jin, Wayne Koestenbaum, Audre Lorde, Eileen Myles, and a teenage Emma Straub, and publish the first books of Sherman Alexie, Eula Biss, Kimiko Hahn, and Maggie Nelson under its Hanging Loose Press imprint. An early… Read More