Search Results: Authors starting with W from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1693. First collected edition. Contemporary calf. Very Good. SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF THE COLLECTED WORKS of one of Newton's most important precursors, John Wallis, Savilian Professor (1649-1703), containing the first printed appearance of Newton's ideas on fluxions. A staunch promoter of English mathematicians, Wallis repeatedly urged Newton to publish his theories before others laid claim to he work, for the sake of "your Reputation (& that of the nation)" (Gjertsen, Newton Handbook, 605). While Newton resisted for many years, in 1693 Wallis published several letters from Newton in Vol. II of his Opera, thereby introducing the concept of fluxional notation-pricked and dotted letters. In the preface to Vol. I (1695), Wallis refers briefly to Newton's claim to the discovery of Fluxions, while Vol II (1693) has the first full account of Newton's invention of calculus. 
 The third volume of Wallis's Opera contains previously unpublished correspondence between Newton… Read More

New York: Andy Warhol, 1957. First edition. Original gold wrapper, original cloth. Very Good. WARHOL'S RARE STUNNING SELF-PUBLISHED EARLY WORK. PRESENTATION COPY TO PHOTOGRAPHER DUANE MICHALS. INSCRIBED ON FRONT COVER: "To Duane / Happy Brithday [sic] / A.W." WITH LETTER OF PROVENANCE FROM DUANE MICHALS. "Warhol published A Gold Book [in 1957]. Printed on gold-coated paper with pink, lilac, and teal tissue laid between the pages, A Gold Book indulges the sensual in both its content and its materiality. It is dedicated to 'Boys filles fruits and flowers shoes tc and ew,' referencing both the broader gay subculture to which Warhol belonged, his close friend Ted Carey, and Warhol's then lover Edward Wallowitch, whose photographs were the basis of several drawings in the book." (Lucy Mulroney, Andy Warhol, Publisher). A Gold Book was one of "Warhol's promotional books - handmade and personalized - [that] often felt more like gifts. He sent A Gold Book at Christmas in 1957... He traced most of these… Read More

Los Angeles, 1986. LARGE PORTRAIT OF WARHOL. SIGNED BY THE ARTIST. NO. 24 OF 25. One of Gorman's most iconic images, demonstrating his mastery of light and shadow, is his portrait of Andy Warhol. Taken one year before Warhol's death in 1987, the image captures a side of him not often seen, an austere and slightly more intimidating appearance. But with the invariable shock of white hair, it is immediately recognisable as Andy. From an edition of 25, this large-format 23 x 18.75 in portrait (as opposed to smaller editions of 19 x 15 in and 14 x 11 in) is signed, dated and numbered by Gorman on the reverse. Image: 23 x 18.75 in Sheet: 24 x 20 in Frame: 28.5 x 24 in GORMAN, GREG. b. 1949. Andy Warhol, Los Angeles, 1986. Silver gelatin photograph, no. 24 of 25. Gorman's authentication stamp signed in pencil on reverse. Fine, handsomely framed.

Stockholm: Moderna Muséet, 1968. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, profusely illustrated with full-page black and white photographs. Warhol's Moderna Muséet catalog "is a fine example of the catalogue-as-artist's-book, a form that ostensibly began with the Dadaists and Surrealists, and is produced with some of the roughest reproductions ever seen, which are entirely appropriate, and supplemented by a long section of Factory snapshots by Billy Name. The genre was revitalized by the Pop movement, and Warhol in particular, which demonstrates his position as a latter-day Dadaist. The Moderna Museet publication especially had a great influence upon Japanese photography in the late 1960s and 1970s, particularly the photobooks of the Provoke era" (Parr and Badger, Vol II). Published by Moderna Muséet, Sweden, in 1968 as an exhibition catalogue for the show "Andy Warhol" at the Moderna Muséet in Stockholm, February - March, 1968. Stockholm: Moderna Muséet, 1968. Quarto (approx. 8.5… Read More

Tokyo: Gendai Hanga Center, 1984. First Edition. Original cloth. Fine. FIRST EDITION, WITH STUNNING ORIGINAL SILKSCREEN PRINT BY WARHOL, of the catalog for Warhol's celebrated "Kiku" Tokyo exhibition. Capitalizing on Warhol's strong appeal to Japanese collectors, members of the Gendai Hanga Center in Tokyo asked Warhol in 1982 to create a body of work specifically for them, focusing in particular on images of flowers. Warhol agreed, and created a beautiful series of images inspired by the chrysanthemum (the traditional symbol representing the Japanese emperor and Imperial House). The exhibition was a success and Warhol's exquisite prints for the "Kiku" (the Japanese word for chrysanthemum) exhibition have since become highly regarded by both critics and collectors. One of 1500 copies printed. Tokyo: Gendai Hanga Center, 1984. Octavo, original silver-lettered silver cloth; custom silk box. Without rare original slipcase. With original silkscreen print bound-in and… Read More

London: Jonathan Cape, 1951. First edition. Original cloth, original dust jacket. Very Good/Very Good. FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY WHITE: PERHAPS THE BEST POSSIBLE ASSOCIATION COPY, WITH A WARM AND LENGTHY INSCRIPTION TO HIS GOOD FRIEND SYDNEY COCKERELL - CONNOISEUR, BIBLIOPHILE, AND DIRECTOR OF THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM. T.H. White is best known for his magnificent re-telling of the Arthurian saga in his Once and Future King tetralogy - The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind. His life - as described by his biographer Sylvia Warner Townsend, and more recently in Helen Macdonald's prize-winning memoir H is for Hawk - was a sad one. He was a heavy drinker, pathologically fearful, estranged from humanity, emotionally crippled by a turbulent upbringing, troubled by dark sado-masochistic fantasies, and isolated, in a homophobic era, by his (likely) homosexuality. As an adult, he attempted to exorcise his demons through psychoanalysis; by… Read More

np: np, 1878. custom folder. Very Good. Walt Whitman Albumen Photograph by Napoleon Sarony given to his caregiver and house mate Mary O. Davis. Signed by Davis. To call Mary O. Davis, Walt Whitman's housekeeper is akin to calling a parent its child's babysitter. Perhaps history has undermined Ms. Davis' role simply because the English language lacks the proper word to describe their relationship. Nurse? Roommate? Modern-Family? Rather than finding a catchall word, let's try to briefly describe their relationship. It began in 1884 when Whitman brought clothing to Ms. Davis' rented home for mending. Soon enough, he began taking his meals with Ms. Davis. And soon after, Whitman purchased his first home-yes, it took until 1884, when the poet was 64 years old, for him to finally own a home. But what is a home without a family, Whitman may have thought. He had no wife of course, no children. So he asked Ms. Davis if she would like to join him in his new home. In some ways the relationship began as… Read More

Camden, NJ: np, 1888. First edition. Fine. WHITMAN AS A BOOKSELLER, TRYING TO SELL LEAVES OF GRASS. In this letter, Whitman has written to New York publishers Dick & Fitzgerald mentioning Leaves of Grass. He offers the book to them at a 33% discount and signs the letter with his full signature "Walt Whitman". Framed alongside the letter is the famous photo of Whitman touching the (prop) butterfly from the first edition of Whitman's "Specimen Days & Collect". The letter, dated Feb 18, 1888 from his 328 Mickle Street address (Camden, New Jersey) reads in full: "After some delay I have succeeded in getting you a two Vol. set (in perfect order half leather binding) those portraits from life, of Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets ed'n 1876 - Shall I send the vols to you? The price is $6.66 (+10 - one-third off). [signed] Walt Whitman" Matted and framed with UV filtered glass with opening on back to show the address side of post card. Framed alongside Whitman's letter is the photograph of Whitman from… Read More

New York and Washington: Walt Whitman, 1865. First Edition. Publisher's Cloth. Very Good. FIRST EDITION OF WHITMAN'S IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF CIVIL WAR POEMS. THE PREFERRED "SECOND ISSUE" WITH THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE "SEQUEL" CONTAINING POEMS WHITMAN WROTE AFTER THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. Drum-Taps, Walt Whitman's first book of poems not entitled Leaves of Grass, emerged from seismic shifts in Walt Whitman the man, Walt Whitman the writer, and the American nation. While Leaves of Grass is a work of joyful exuberance, youthful exploration, sexual liberation, and a metaphorical consummation of a man's love for his nation, Drum-Taps offers no such euphoric exaltations. After years of civil war, Whitman could no longer embrace the nation as a unified land of hope, open spaces, and endless possibilities; indeed, after visiting his brother George on the battlefield in 1863, Whitman famously joined the war effort - not as a soldier - but as a nurse. Beside the injured and dying men on the battlefields,… Read More

Philadelphia: Ferguson Bros. & Co, 1889. Signed Limited First Edition. Very Good. SIGNED FIRST EDTION OF THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION OF WHITMAN'S WORK; A REMARKABLE COPY FROM WHITMAN'S PERSONAL LIBRARY. On this Edition:
 "Whitman never lost his passion for joining disparate parts into a whole: it was the basis of his politics, his philosophy, and his bookmaking. He wrote to one acquaintance in 1886 that 'I think of... bringing out a complete budget of all my writing in one book.'... Horace Traubel was again involved in getting this big book out, and he and Whitman had endless discussions about all aspects of its production." 

Whitman was worried about his failing health and terrified that he would die before his "big book" was published. "At one point the poet told Traubel, 'I am in a hurry-in a hurry: I want to see the book in plates: then I can die satisfied. We will attend to the presswork and binding when we come to it. The main thing is the plates-the plates. Horace, I am on the verge of… Read More

Washington, D.C.: np, 1869. First edition. custom folder. Very Good. A LOVE LETTER FROM "FATHER WHITMAN" TO A CIVIL WAR SOLDIER. A rare and significant letter to one of the young soldiers Whitman aided at a military hospital during the Civil War. Whitman corresponded with Pratt for some 8 years, beginning after Pratt's hospitalization in 1865. Whitman's letter is a response to Pratt's own of May 9, 1869, in which Pratt asks why he has not heard from Whitman (despite having sent several letters to him) and in which Pratt gives report of his health. Pratt's letter, which is addressed to "Father Whitman," essentially affirms that Whitman saved his life in 1865: "had it not been for that smiling countenace [of yours] I should have been no more". Whitman's letter in response to Pratt's letter was initially dated "June 28, 1869" and subsequently revised by Whitman to July 1. In his letter Whitman gives brief report of his life and affectionately affirms "Dear boy I would like to see you, that we might… Read More

Los Angeles: 7410 Publishing Company, 1990. First edition. Original box. Very Good. LIMITED DELUXE EDITION PHOTO-BOOK DOCUMENTING THE PUBLIC RESPONSE TO THE DEATH OF MARILYN MONROE; WITH TWO SIGNED ORIGINAL PRINTS; COPY A OUT OF ONLY 26 LETTERED COPIES. Front-page news across the US and Europe, the death of Marilyn Monroe on Saturday, 4 August 1962 shocked all who had come to know and love the star over her dramatic rise to fame in the proceeding decade. Just as Monroe has captured the public's imagination in her lifetime, her unexpected passing launched a flurry of media attention, riddled with everything from conspiracy theories involving the Kennedys to critiques of ever-invasive paparazzi. Photojournalist Leigh Wiener (1926-1993) was there the morning of Sunday, 5 August, on assignment for Life Magazine to cover the unfolding dramatic aftermath. In his career, Wiener documented a wide array of public and private events featuring celebrities of all walks of life including every US President from… Read More

New York: New Directions, 1946. First edition. Original cloth, original dust jacket. Fine/Fine. FIRST EDITIONS, AN OUTSTANDING ASSOCIATION COPY: Theodore Roethke's copies of Books III and V, with Book III inscribed in Roethke's hand "Ted Roethke's book, gift of W.C. Williams" and Book V inscribed by Williams "Ted from Bill". With first editions of the remaining volumes. William Carlos Williams was one of the most influential figures in Theodore Roethke's creative life. "At a time when Theodore Roethke was finding his poetic voice, he called William Carlos Williams 'my toughest mentor.'" From 1940-1948, as Roethke was developing his poetry, he submitted his latest work to Williams to critique. Williams repeatedly responded candidly and forcefully, issuing "a series of challenges to Roethke, and these challenges changed the direction and scope of Roethke's art" (Robert Kusch, "My Toughest Mentor": Theodore Roethke and William Carlos Williams). Roethke's own volumes of Paterson - Williams's… Read More

np: np, 1996. First edition. nb. Fine. EXTREMELY RARE LITHOGRAPH SIGNED BY ILLUSTRATOR GARTH WILLIAMS OF THE COVER ART FOR E.B. WHITE'S CLASSIC STUART LITTLE. WITH HAND-COLORING BY WILLIAMS. Pulled by hand from the original pen and ink drawing by Garth Williams. Marked "Bon à Tirer" ("ready for press") in pencil by the printer. This image was acquired directly from the lithographer; Williams added the delicate gray hand-coloring in this image as a guide for the lithographer to follow in coloring the full edition. Williams died in 1996 just after this "ready for press" lithograph was printed; therefore no copies of the final printing of approximately 300 were signed. 

 11.25 x 15 inches. Fine condition. A UNIQUE EXAMPLE OF ONE OF GARTH WILLIAMS'S MOST DESIRABLE IMAGES.

New York: New Directions. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. FIRST EDITIONS of all five books of William Carlos Williams's epic masterpiece, one of the great triumphs of twentieth-century American poetry. Each first edition had a very limited print run: Books I-IV, one of only 1000 copies, Book V, one of 3000 copies. "This is the first part of a long poem in four parts--that man in himself is a city, beginning, seeking, achieving and concluding his life in ways which the various aspects of a city may embody--if imaginatively conceived--any city, all the details of which may be made to voice his most intimate convictions. Part One introduces the elemental character of the place. The Second Part will comprise the modern replicas. Three will seek a language to make them vocal, and Four, the river below the falls, will be reminiscent of episodes--all that any one man may achieve in a lifetime" (Williams, introducing Paterson, which will ultimately become five, rather than four books).… Read More

London: Harrison and Sons. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. FIRST EDITION of the first description of WIlson's famous cloud chamber, the first type of detector to show the tracks of elementary particles. Cloud chambers "developed from the work of Charles Wilson at the Cavendish Laboratory in the 1890's. He was interested in creating artificial mist, in order to investigate its effect on light, and did so by building a desktop-sized apparatus in which a glass chamber full of moist air was connected to a piston which could be suddenly moved outward, lowering the pressure and causing mist (or cloud) to form in the chamber. The mist droplets grow on tiny particles of dust in the air (cloud condensation nuclei). But, to his surprise, Wilson found that even when all the dust had been removed from the chamber, when the piston was rapidly moved out over a large distance a very thin mist still formed in the chamber. He surmised that the droplets were condensing around electrically charged particles… Read More

Boston: Edes and Gill, 1761. First edition. uncut and sewn; custom box. Very Good. VERY RARE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST PUBLICLY FUNDED AMERICAN SCIENCE EXPEDITION: JOHN WINTHROP'S VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND TO PARTICIPATE IN THE INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO TIME THE 1761 TRANSIT OF VENUS AND THUS DETERMINE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE SUN. WITH THE RARE FIRST EDITION OF HIS SUBSEQUENT LECTURES ON THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. Transits of Venus and Their Importance: By chance, the Sun is about 400 times larger in diameter than the Moon, and about 400 times farther from the Earth. As a result, the two bodies have roughly the same apparent size; and on the rare occasions when the Moon is located directly between the Sun and Earth, the Sun is blotted out, with only its corona visible - thus, a total eclipse. Other objects in the solar system do not have such a precisely calibrated relationship between their size and distance from the Earth, and as a result when they pass between the Earth and… Read More

np: np, 1908. First edition. Framed. Very Good. ORIGINAL, HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT DRAWING OF THE YOUNG VIRGINIA STEPHEN BY FRANCIS DODD. DODD'S WORK FROM HIS 1907-1908 SITTINGS WITH WOOLF ARE THE ONLY EXTANT LIKENESSES OF HER FROM THIS PERIOD. FROM THE BENJAMIN SONNENBERG COLLECTION. Virginia Woolf famously hated being an artist's subject. According to her nephew Quentin Bell, "one of the things she most disliked in life was being peered at. A very few friends had been allowed to make pictures; some were made by stealth." We have, therefore, very few surviving images from artists of Woolf, and Dodd's work from 1907-1908 are the only extant artist portraits of her in the early years of her work on her first novel The Voyage Out and were the only artist likenesses of Woolf made prior to Duncan Grant's painting of her of 1911 (now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). At the time of her 1907-1908 sitting with the artist Francis Dodd, Woolf was not yet a famous writer (The Voyage Out would not… Read More

New York: np, 1953. 1st Edition. No Binding. Fine. Strong, impassioned, and revealing letter from Wright to his longtime friend, the architecture critic Lewis Mumford, defending his architectural philosophy after the appearance of Mumford's article in the New Yorker evaluating Wright's life and work. Written on The Plaza, New York letterhead (from December 3 1953), the letter reads in full: "Dear Lewis-- Read your "appreciation" in the plane coming in last night-both glad and furious- Read? Insults my clients and myself-I may be vain but I am not stupid-neither are my clients-- He harks back to the view that an individual should go to 'a style' for his home, be the guest of a style rather than the guest of a great architect-? Yes? Good argument for the communist against Democracy-- He should talk to my clients. So you talked to one-one Paul Hanna. From him you got a false impression-at least so he says and so say I.-- Just one word slipped[;] the word 'my' was actually 'your' in reproving… Read More

Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1910. First edition. Original boards. Very Good. RARE FIRST EDITION OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MAGNIFICENT WASMUTH PORTFOLIO, COMPLETE WITH ALL 100 LARGE FOLIO PLATES. Known the world over as the Wasmuth portfolio, the immensely influential Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe (1910) was a project conceived by Ernst Wasmuth-a Berlin publisher of high-end art books who "intended to publish a complete portfolio of Wright's work to that date [...] that would become a collector's item" (Secrest, Biography, p. 203). In contrast to the compact Frank Lloyd Wright: Ausgeführte Bauten, the Wasmuth portfolio is a grand expression of Wright's architectural vision, containing 100 lithographs of his most successful projects completed by 1910, including: Unity Temple, I.L.; the Robie House, I.L.; the Westcott House, O.H.; and the Cheney House, I.L. (the project on which he met his lover Mrs. Mamah Borthwick Cheney). The extraordinary portfolio showcased here presents an exceptional opportunity… Read More