Search Results: Titles starting with K from Ian Brabner, Rare Americana (ABAA)

New York: Appleton-Century, (1947). 278p., map endpapers. First Edition. Octavo, pictorial cloth, without dustwrapper. Illustrated. Trifle binding wear; a very good clean copy. Lovely copy. Autographed on the dedication page by both author, Amy Oakley, and illustrator, Thornton Oakley.

[Washington, D.C.?], 1941. Broadside or Poster. 28 x 20 inches. Small crease in left margin; faint red pencil mark at edge of top margin; near fine. Patriotic Second World War poster, a superb example, by American illustrator C.C. Beall, issued by the United States Army Recruiting Service.  The design of the poster cleverly incorporates vignette illustrations of the home front and of military personnel to form a composite bust portrait of "Uncle Sam" whose tilted head and firm jaw project resolve and determination to fight the war.  The poster's dual function was to encourage military recruiting and, more pointedly here, civilian participation in the war effort.  On the left there can be seen a factory worker, a scientist, a nurse, and a farmer holding a sheaf of wheat that easily morphs into Uncle Sam's beard; on the right, an airman, a sailor, and a soldier holding a rifle with bayonet.  Printed at the lower corner of the image is a patriotic poem by Jack Childs that concludes "So-'Keep 'em Flying!'" Read More

[Detroit: Kelvinator Sales Corporation. ca. 1930s-40s.] Quarto, cloth spine, stiff pebbled-styled black wrappers. Mild foxing; overall, very good. A total of 18 large 8 x 10 prints-most in color and taken from photographs, some actual photographs-all pitching the Yukon refrigerator built by this Michigan company. A repeatedly-used background image shows two buildings, perhaps from the Detroit skyline with one housing the Kelvinator Corporation's headquarters. This portfolio is unrecorded in OCLC and its rarity is due to its manufacture being solely for selling agents. The accordion-styled binding is such that 9 images can be displayed on each side. The portfolio could be stood up on edge for a dimensional display. Kelvinator's refrigerators were featured at the 1939-1940 World's Fair Exposition in New York in the "Town of Tomorrow" exhibition.

[New York:] Negro Publication Society of America, 1941. 315pp. Near fine in publisher's cloth binding with dust jacket in almost like condition; a few nicks at folds and extremities. Published here as History Series 1, no. 1. First published in 1856, this is the account of Peter Still and his family's escape from slavery through the Underground Railroad. A compelling narrative told to a woman author.

Boston: Little, Brown & Co., (1992). 194 pages. Small octavo. Find in publisher's binding and dust jacket. First edition, first printing. McKnight won the O. Henry Award and the Kenyon Review New Fiction Prize for "The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas." From the collection of Oliver St. Clair Franklin, OBE, Honorary Consul, British Honorary Consulate, Philadelphia.

London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1929. 305, [1], [vi]pp. Octavo. Publisher's cloth binding; without dustwrapper. Some age-spots to spine; edges heavily foxed; half-title and title-page foxed, otherwise, internally quite clean and snug in binding; good. First edition, first impression. The second novel by this American-British suffragist and author. Scarce.

London: Turret Books, MCMXCII [1992]. [8], 85, [3]pp. Tall 8vo. Quarter parchment and cloth boards. Near fine in near fine slipcase with cloth at top and bottom edges. Revised Edition. Number 26 of 75 copies signed by the author, out of a whole edition of 85 copies.

[Marblehead [Massachusetts?]; April 1, 1808]. [58] leaves containing 108 numbered, manuscript pages. 7½ x 6½ inches. Blank book; stitched gatherings. Original blue, reinforced paper wrappers; cream and pale blue laid paper leaves. Disbound; some losses at edges of wrappers which bear modern tape reinforcement at spine on recto and verso; stitched gatherings reinforced with silk ribbon; toning; scattered stains, else very good; easily legible. Housed in a custom archive enclosure. Impeccably transcribed, the complete translation by Joseph Wilson, Jr. (1788 or 1792-1872/1875) of a French chivalric romance betrays none of the difficult labor associated with translation. Wilson's manuscript, which he entitled The Knight Robert Surnamed the Brave may well be the only English-language translation of Le Chevalier Robert, ou Histoire de Robert surnommé le Brave. The manuscript is likely a fair copy; Wilson's minute, perfectly inclined handwriting unerringly and obstinately fill the pages of the unruled… Read More

New York: October, 1961. Glossy single sheet folded once to form 4-page playbill; light creases; very good. This 54th Street Theatre Broadway flop was set in a Western African nation as it was about the gain independence from Britain. While the dances and musical numbers staged by Agnes de Mille were praised, the play's storyline was not. "Shortly after the reviews came in, the show's African drummer led a voodoo ritual backstage, aimed at destroying the critics who had not liked Kwamini."  (Ken Mandelbaum) The cast album released by Capitol has been described as having now achieved cult status and this undated playbill could be from the play's premier or from another date during its 1-month tenure on Broadway.