Search Results: Authors starting with N from Peter Harrington

New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,, 1974. Inscribed by the fastidious author to an excessively bold editor First edition, first printing, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the half-title, and scarce thus, "For Gordon Lish, with best regards from Vladimir Nabokov, who has corrected several misprints in this copy, 6.ix.74 Montreaux". Lish had been offered the serial rights to the title by the editor, Fred Hills, but his infamously heavy editing caused Nabokov to reject the proposal. Nabokov has made corrections to pages 8, 10, 90, 116, 231, and 246, crossing out two whole sentences on p. 116, and changing "confined" to "confirmed" on p. 8, line 31, a correction made in the second printing. This was Nabokov's final book, inscribed in his final home, Montreaux, where he lived from 1961 until his death in 1977. Gordon Lish (b.1934) is an American writer and literary editor, who was fiction editor at Esquire from 1969-77. While at Esquire he published several of Nabokov's stories and edited the… Read More

Paris: The Olympia Press,, 1955. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins First edition, first impression, first issue. Lolita was originally published with "Francs : 900" printed on the rear covers, but a sudden currency fluctuation at the time of publication meant that the books had to be re-priced to 1,200 francs. Copies of the first issue appear either without a price change, as here, or with the bookseller's hand-written correction. The second issue appeared with the publisher's overprice sticker on the rear covers. Nabokov, unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept Lolita, turned to Paris to find a press. Olympia printed 5,000 copies in 1955; customs officials in the UK were quickly instructed to seize copies of the book at the border, and a year later it was also banned in France. Widespread censorship did little to dampen the book's success; when it was finally published in the USA in 1958 it topped best-seller lists, selling 100,000 copies in the first few weeks. 2… Read More

London: Adlard & Son, Limited,, 1931. His scarce early paper on butterflies First appearance in print of Nabokov's scarce scientific paper, describing his butterfly hunting in southern France following a decade-long hiatus from insect collecting. "By now he had thrown off any constraints at expressing his feelings and perceptions in an entomological article, and portions of it read no differently from his fiction" (Nabokov's Butterflies, p. 40). As seen here, Nabokov's scientific and literary pursuits were often interwoven; during this trip, which was funded by the advance for the German translation of King, Queen, Knave, he began composing The Defense. The Pyrénées Orientales and the Ariège was "full of the wonder of new habitats and fresh fauna known to him previously only in books" (ibid.), and Nabokov outlines his research there in full literary fashion: "The window-panes quivered, the foliage of the olive and cork trees in the brilliant sunshine gleamed, rustled and tumbled about in a most… Read More

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,, [1958]. First US edition, first printing, with the publisher's advertisement and a contemporary review by Elizabeth Janeway, both from the 24 August 1958 issue of the New York Times, loosely inserted. Nabokov's masterpiece was first published in Paris in 1955. The present edition marks the first full appearance of Lolita in the US (part of it had been excerpted in the Anchor Review in 1957), where it topped best-seller lists on publication, selling 100,000 copies in the first few weeks. This edition contains some minor textual revisions from the Paris edition and a new afterword, in which Nabokov recounts his difficulties having the book published in America. Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, spine lettered in gilt, grey and white patterned paper boards, red endpapers, top edge red, fore edge untrimmed, bottom edge trimmed. With dust jacket. Head of spine lightly bumped, hint of rubbing to boards, half-title browned from inserted pieces, contents otherwise clean;… Read More

London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, , 1959. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins First UK edition, first impression. Lolita was first published by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1955 after Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept the work. Customs officials in the UK were quickly instructed to seize copies of the book at the border, and a year later it was also banned in France. Widespread censorship did little to dampen the book's success: when it was finally published in the USA in 1958, it topped best-seller lists, selling 100,000 copies in the first few weeks. Kingsley Amis, writing for The Spectator in 1959, remarked on the almost immediate cult-status of the novel in the UK: "Few books published in this country since the King James Bible can have set up more eager expectation than Lolita, nor, on the other hand, can any work have been much better known in advance to its potential audience". Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in red morocco, spine… Read More

London: Heinemann,, 1959. Inscribed by Nabokov First UK edition, first impression, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, and rare thus: "Vladimir Nabokov Oct. 31 1959 London", likely at the behest of Jean, to whom the book was inscribed five months prior in a different hand: "To Jean on her departure! May 5th 59". This was inscribed by Nabokov on Halloween, in London, the year the British edition of Lolita was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Nabokov's Dozen was first published in book form in the US in 1958; the UK edition, published 16 March 1959, contains four additional stories: "Signs and Symbols", "Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster", "Lance", and "First Love", which (in Nabokov's own words) "became the darling of anthologists". Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, Heinemann mill blind on rear board. With the dust jacket. A little dust staining to extremities, a couple of gentle bumps to rear joint, edges foxed, extending occasionally to text block,… Read More

Paris: The Olympia Press,, 1955. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins First edition, first impression, first issue. Lolita was originally published with "Francs : 900" printed on the rear covers, but a sudden currency fluctuation at the time of publication meant that the books had to be re-priced to 1,200 francs. Copies of the first issue appear either without a price change, as here, or with the bookseller's hand-written correction. The second issue appeared with the publisher's overprice sticker on the rear covers. In this copy, the price of the second volume is untouched, and the price of the first volume has been lightly inked over in blank, but with no corrected price added, meaning this is likely to be some later marking, and not any sign of second issue. Nabokov, unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept Lolita, turned to Paris to find a press. Olympia printed 5,000 copies in 1955; customs officials in the UK were quickly instructed to seize copies of the book at the… Read More

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd,, 1934. First British edition, first impression, of the authors' analysis of the breakdown of the American banking system in 1933. Nadler and Bogen were then Professors of Finance at New York University: their work offers an eyewitness account of the crisis, written "in an easy, simple style, avoiding most of the technical jargon of economists" (Current History, p. vi). Over the winter of 1932-33, many Americans, losing confidence in the solvency of their banks, attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse. The resulting wave of panic caused many established banks to fail, and was arrested only by the emergency bank holiday declared by Franklin D. Roosevelt on 6 March 1933. Nadler and Bogen's work explores the short-term causes of the 1933 panic, while the final chapter outlines their proposal for legislative reforms to combat similar crises in the future. The work was first published in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1933. Per the title page verso, this edition "is… Read More

London: Andre Deutsch,, 1975. With original photograph First edition, first impression. Signed by the author on the title page. From the library of historian and auctioneer Anthony Hobson and with a photograph of him and Naipaul (kept in an envelope with the autograph inscription: "AH looking Japanese with V.S. Naipaul at Tony Powell's 80th birthday lunch, Claridge's 8 April 19"). With Hobson's bookplate to the front pastedown. Octavo. Original brown boards, titles to spine gilt. With dust jacket. An excellent copy in the dust jacket.

London: Andre Deutsch,, 1967. First edition, first impression. Signed by Naipaul on the title page. From the library of historian and auctioneer Anthony Hobson and with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Octavo. Original dark red boards, titles to spine gilt. With dust jacket. Slight offsetting from dust jacket onto spine, couple of small stains to top edge. An excellent copy in a slightly toned jacket with a few minor nicks to extremities.

Santa Monica: Published for the Bonsai Institute of California by Dennis Landman,, 1973 & 1982. By a true Bonsai master First editions, first printings, presentation copies, inscribed by the author on the half-titles to the bonsai master Richard Cantrell, with his ownership signatures and blind stamps. Each inscription quotes a poignant haiku of the author's own composition: "Last leaf has fallen. Tree will sleep and I will dream: Spring is tomorrow". Considered one of the greatest practitioners of the art, John Yoshio Naka (1914-2004) popularized bonsai in the West in the second half of the 20th century. Following a period in 1946 spent studying under Sam Takekichi Doi in Los Angeles, he founded the forerunner to the California Bonsai Society in 1950 and began to exhibit works and lecture around the world. His masterpiece, Goshin - "one of the most widely recognized examples of the art form in the world" (Huntington) - is displayed at the United States National Arboretum in Washington DC. In 1985,… Read More

Paris: Funny Bones Editions,, 2013. The Parisian streets of Nakafuji First edition, first printing. Signed on the obi by Nakafuji in English and Japanese. Quarto. 180 folded but unbound pages held together with a heavy card obi. Full page black and white photographic illustrations throughout. All in fine condition.

Istanbul: Kadar matbaas ,, 1331 H / 1912 CE. A journey from Persia to China First edition, first printing, of an Osmanl ca Turkish translation of the Persian travelogue of Ghiyas al-Din Naqqash, who accompanied the Timurid embassy from Herat to the court of the Yongle Emperor in Beijing between 1419 and 1422. Several Turkic translations of the text were made in the centuries after it was composed. This one is by Çelebizade smail As m Efendi, otherwise known as Küçükçelebizade (d. 1760), who was a distinguished historian and author, in addition to being eyhülislam. The style of the writing is remarkably uncomplicated, and the account provides a fascinating glimpse into Ming China as experienced by an outsider. The author relates the Timurid embassy's journey in detail, describing the monuments of the cities that it visited and giving a first-hand account of the Forbidden City. While Ghiyas al-Din is careful to include as much factual information as possible regarding Ming government and… Read More

London: Jonathan Edwin,, 1677. First edition. "Nalson was a prolific writer as well as a country clergyman and his platform, in his own words, was consistently that of a 'true Church of England King's Protestant' (J. Nalson, The True Protestant's Appeal, 1681, 1). 'I do perfectly hate and abhor all Popery, superstition and innovation in the church', he declared. 'I do no less detest and abhor all other schismatical practices and persuasions, treacherous and disloyal doctrines and actions of Commonwealth Protestants' (ibid.). Nalson unswervingly indulged these convictions in a stream of publications which gushed forth in the unsettled years 1677 to 1685... His style was trenchant, hard-hitting, polemical, vivid, and vitriolic. Although he frequently used the term loosely as a convenient holdall, presbyterianism was a recurring target for attack by Nalson and in The Common Interest of King and People (1677) was roundly denounced as 'that revived hydra of the lake of Geneva, with its many headed… Read More

London: Archibald Constable and Company,, 1897. First edition, preceding the first edition in Norwegian of the same year. Nansen's expedition was a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration, undertaken to investigate "the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North, the official account of the first Fram expedition, is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he "claims no artistic merit," but which are nonetheless highly atmospheric and effective. Like many of the polar books… Read More

Kristiana [Oslo]: H. Aschehoug & Co,, 1897. First edition in Norwegian, following the English edition of the same year. Nansen's expedition was "a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration" (PMM), undertaken to investigate "the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Fram over Polhavet, the official account of the first Fram expedition, is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he "claims no artistic merit," but which are nonetheless atmospheric and effective. Like many of the polar… Read More

New York: Harper & Brothers,, 1897. A remarkable achievement in Polar exploration First US edition of the official account of the first Fram expedition, undertaken to investigate "the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he "claims no artistic merit," but which are nonetheless atmospheric and effective. It was first published in the UK earlier the same year. 2 volumes, octavo. Original dark grey cloth, spine and front cover… Read More

London: George Newnes, Ltd,, 1898. Second UK edition, issued a year after the first, and the first to be bound in the distinctive elaborately decorated cloth. This is the official account of the first Fram expedition of 1893-6, "a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration" (PMM). This copy has Nansen's signature, dated 19 February 1893, on a paper sheet sometime affixed to the front free endpaper. The expedition was undertaken "with the object of investigating the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the Pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North is… Read More

London: Archibald Constable and Company,, 1897. First edition, preceding the first edition in Norwegian of the same year. Nansen's expedition was a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration, undertaken to investigate "the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North, the official account of the first Fram expedition, is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he "claims no artistic merit," but which are nonetheless highly atmospheric and effective. Like many of the polar books from the heroic… Read More

London: George Newnes, Ltd,, 1898. Second UK edition, issued a year after the first, and is the first to be bound in the distinctive elaborately decorated cloth. This is the official account of the first Fram expedition of 1893-6, "a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration" (PMM). The expedition was undertaken "with the object of investigating the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the Pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he claims no artistic merit, but which… Read More