Search Results: Titles starting with P from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

London: various, 1951. First editions. original wrappers. Fine. FIRST EDITIONS, OFFPRINT ISSUES (INCLUDING ONE SIGNED COPY AND ONE SIGNED PRESENTATION COPY), OF MILESTONE PAPERS ON THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF PROTEINS, WORK FOR WHICH PAULING, KENDREW, AND PERUTZ ALL WON NOBEL PRIZES. Proteins - the "building blocks of life" - are themselves made up of building blocks known as amino acids. There are about twenty types of amino acid molecules commonly found in biological organisms, and each is chemically equipped to connect to two other amino acids through a linkage known as a peptide bond, enabling any number of amino acids to form a chain that constitutes the backbone of a protein molecule. (The specific linear sequence of amino acids that make up a particular protein's backbone is referred to as the protein's "primary structure.") Each of the 20-odd amino acids also has its own characteristic "side-chain." The interaction of these side chains with each other and with their… 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

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

Los Angeles: np, 1960. FIRST EDITION. Fine. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT'S OFFICIAL CONVENTION BADGES FOR THE 1960 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION. With a signed letter from Roosevelt to her good friend Mayris Chaney concerning her arrival at the convention. TWO BADGES: Decorative medals held with red-white-and-blue ribbon, the first reading "Mrs. F.D. Roosevelt / Former First Lady" on two metal bars, between beautiful engraved patriotic designs at the top and bottom surrounding the text "United States of America" and "1960 Democratic National Convention Los Angeles"; the second badge, again with the beautiful patriotic emblems, reads "Honored Guest". The medals include the original box. On July 10, 1960, the day before the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Eleanor Roosevelt refused to ride in a limousine to a reception, preferring to walk half a mile with reporters. The absence of former President Harry Truman underscored the Democrats' break with the past and cast a warm light on former First… Read More

np: np, 1932. First edition. nb. UNPUBLISHED CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS OF EINSTEIN AND LETTERS BY WILLIAM HUBBARD OFFERING AN INTIMATE VIEW OF THE SCIENTIST ON VACATION. On March 2, 1932, at the height of his career and world fame, Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa set off on a vacation to their German homeland, departing from Los Angeles on the M. S. San Francisco. Another passenger aboard the ship was the renowned music scholar, William Lines Hubbard. Famous in his own right, Hubbard was the music critic for the Chicago Tribune and author of a definitive 11-volume work on the history of opera (published 1908).  Accompanying Hubbard was his companion Julia Reid, their cabins adjacent to that of the Einstein's. As was the practice during this era, Hubbard kept detailed journals and letters of his travel experiences.  This collection, from the estate of Hubbard, contains the following items:
 1. Three unpublished small black-and-white and sepia photographs.  The first photograph (4.5" x 2.5")… Read More

Paris: np, 1932. Fine. MAN RAY CAPTURES PICASSO'S ESSENCE IN LEGENDARY PORTRAIT. AN ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH WITH IMPORTANT PROVENANCE: From the famous Sotheby's sale of 1995 of items from the "Estate of Juliet Man Ray, The Man Ray Trust and the Family of Juliet Man Ray". The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Emmanuel "Manny" Radnitzky (1890-1976) grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He displayed creative abilities from a young age and studied to be a painter. He adopted "Man Ray" as his pseudonym and in 1915 formed the New York group of Dada artists with Marcel Duchamp. In the 1920s and 1930s, Paris was the destination for the international avant-garde, offering an exceptional number of galleries, art dealers, and wealthy patrons who promised artistic freedom. Man Ray sailed to the "City of Light" in 1921, joined Parisian Dada and Surrealist circles and became intimate associates with Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and other leading artists. He pursued fashion and portrait photography creating a pantheon of the… Read More

np: np, 1963. First edition. Framed. Very Good. WONDERFUL SURREALIST PHOTOGRAPH OF DUCHAMP, MAN RAY, AND LAURIE SAVAGE. Inscribed by the photographer Naomi Savage: "Greetings of the Season from Naomi and David Savage, with Man Ray, Duchamp, and Laurie looking on.". Having met in 1915, Man Ray (American 1890 - 1976) and Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887 - 1968) were lifelong friends and frequent collaborators whose powerful intellectual chemistry allowed them to respond freely to each other's ideas in an artistic dialogue filled with in-jokes and innuendos. For example, among their earliest collaborations is Man Ray's portraits of Duchamp's alter-ego, Rrose Selvay, whose name is a pun on the French phrase, Eros, c'est la vie. Man Ray and Duchamp's mutual rejection of traditional art-world ideologies and art-making practices remained a mainstay of their long friendship. Today each artist is associated with a range of avante-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and Conceptual Art. Photographed… Read More

New York: np, 1932. First edition. Fine. STUNNING SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF YEATS BY MARTIN VOS. A classic studio portrait of Yeats by the New York portrait photographer Martin Vos, signed "W.B. Yeats" in ink in the bottom right corner. Vos was a popular portrait photographer in New York in the 1930s, known for his portraits of celebrities, most notably Albert Einstein (a famous photoshoot with Einstein and Tagore) and Franklin Roosevelt. Yeats visited New York from October 1932 through January 1933 at which time this photograph was presumably taken. Size: 7.5 x 9.5 inches. Archivally double-matted and framed to an overall size of 14.5 x 16.5 inches. New York: c.1932. Silver gelatin print. In fine, nearly perfect condition. Signed Yeats photos are very rare on the market.

np: np, 1935. Framed. Fine. RARE OVER-SIZED PHOTOGRAPH BY MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, THE FIRST FOREIGN PHOTOGRAPHER TO CAPTURE THE U.S.S.R. While American photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White's first assignment in the Soviet Union was to capture the environment and effects of industrialization, what the photographer ended up paying close attention to was the people. She writes that, during that time, she had a dream in which the cars she was photographing turned on her--hoods snapping, as if to swallow her. From then on, Bourke-White vowed to move away from the industrial photography of her early years, to "undertake only those photographic assignments which I felt could be done in a creative and constructive way."  And so, Bourke-White did not only spend her time in the early 1930s (taking three consecutive trips in the summers of 1930-32) photographing Soviet industrialization: she took an interest in the people too. This photograph, which captures in detail the expression and profile of each of… Read More

France: np, 1965. First edition. Very Good. Cecil Beaton. INSCRIBED BY PICASSO IN RED AND BLUE CRAYON TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER, CECIL BEATON: "pour Cecil Beaton. Ami Picasso 9.6.65.". Cecil Beaton (British, 1904 -1980) photographed virtually every prominent person in public life over the course of his career, which spanned more than half a century. Everyone from the Queen to the Rolling Stones sat before his lens. As an arbiter of glamor, the opportunity to sit for Beaton represented the pinnacle of success for many, but in some cases it was Beaton who pursued the sitter, and he had followed Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881 - 1973) long before they first met. As one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, Picasso was sought after by many who wanted to rub elbows with success. He became one of those whom Beaton photographed several times over a period of many years, first at the rue de la Boetie in Paris in 1933, then at the rue Augustins in 1944, and finally at Mougin in the south of France in… Read More

New York: The Review of Reviews, 1911. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. FIRST EDITIONS OF MILLER'S CELEBRATED PHOTO-DOCUMENTARY OF THE CIVIL WAR. AN EXCEPTIONAL SET IN THE ORIGINAL WOODEN SHIPPING CRATE, DUST JACKETS, AND WITH ORIGINAL PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL. Miller's work "still remains the major source for photographs of the Civil War; the greatest single collection of Brady illustrations" (Allan Nevins). The Mathew Brady photographs represent the first instance of a comprehensive photo-documentation of a war. As the New York Times reported, Brady had brought "home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war." 

Note: All volumes are 1911 first editions; volume 10 (as often) with the second issue index. This set is a remarkable survival. Originally sold by Wanamaker's with the original promotional material - including large loose sheets featuring many of the iconic photographs - from Wanamaker's and the original wooden shipping crate with "Photographic History of the Civil War" stamped on the… Read More

Princeton: Estate of Fred Stein, 1946. Limited Edition. no binding. Fine. STUNNING LARGE GELATIN SILVER LIMITED EDITION PHOTOGRAPH; one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. One of only 450 in the edition. "In 1946, when Albert Einstein was in residence at Princeton University, Fred Stein was granted ten minutes of the great man's time to take a portrait. After the time was up, Einstein's secretary came in to usher Stein out. However, Einstein insisted that he stay, saying that their discussion was too interesting to cut short. The secretary came back repeatedly, but the visit extended to two hours. The resulting portrait by Fred Stein pictures a deep intelligence engaged in thought. It became an iconic image, and one of the most famous photographs ever taken of Albert Einstein" (Dawn Freer, "Fred Stein: A Retrospective"). Printed later (1994) on behalf of the Fred Stein estate by Stein's son, Peter Stein: "Printed and archivally processed by a master… Read More

Paris: Man Ray, 1931. First edition. gelatin silver print. Fine. STUNNING PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH BY MAN RAY OF MARY GILL; WITH ICONIC ARTIST STUDIO STAMPS ON VERSO INDICATING A CONTEMPORARY PRINTING. "The man who was to become the most important photographer of the 20th Century and one of the leading experimental painters of the modern era was born Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia in 1890, the son of a Jewish immigrant tailor." Having been introduced to Alfred Stieglitz during the early 1900s in his Manhattan 291 gallery, Man Ray made a name for himself in Paris primarily as a photographer, capturing fashion models and famous subjects like Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Jean Cocteau.  (Michael Kilian, "Man Ray - The Legend Lives", The Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11, 1988). In this exquisite photograph, Man Ray captures Mary Gill (sometimes known as "Mary Gill-Einstein" since she was the first wife of the American painter William Einstein, or "Marie Gill" from her time in Paris), looking away to her… Read More

New York: np, 1956. First edition. Framed. CONTACT SHEET OF THIRTEEN PHOTOGRAPHS FROM CECIL BEATON'S ICONIC 1956 PHOTOSHOOT WITH MARILYN MONROE. With annotations by Beaton in white ink above the images, and his stamp on the back. Likely unique. "She romps, she squeals with delight, she leaps on the sofa....It is an artless, impromptu, high-spirited, infectiously gay performance. It will probably end in tears" Cecil Beaton presciently concluded in his diary after photographing Marilyn Monroe in 1956. Beaton (British, 1904 -1980) was primarily known for having photographed virtually every prominent person in public life over the course of his long career. Everyone from the Queen to the Rolling Stones sat before his lens: authors, dancers, actors, poets, directors, musicians, world leaders, generals, statesmen, as well as iconic figures in the world of fashion and high life. As an arbiter of glamor, the opportunity to sit for Beaton represented the pinnacle of success for many. While Beaton clicked… Read More

np: np. 1st Edition. No Binding. Very Good. LARGE (8 x 10 in ) PHOTOGRAPH OF RAND, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED in ink in the bottom margin: "To Carl Davis - / -Cordially - Ayn Rand / 8-25-78". A fine portrait of Rand in her later years. A little ink variation on the inscription, due to the glossy paper, otherwise fine. Signed Rand photographs are extremely rare on the market.

New York: np, 1930. First edition. Photograph framed. Fine. RARE, LARGE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH BY FEARLESS FEMALE PHOTOJOURNALIST MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE. Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White holds many crowns. Some have called her "one of photojournalism's most groundbreaking and memorable characters" ( Britannica ); the New York Times referred to her as "one of the world's pre-eminent photographers" and "the female gaze behind Life Magazine"; she held, above all else "the belief in an artist's duty to change the world." ( Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame ). She was the first woman allowed to shoot in combat zones, the first female war photojournalist, and the first female documentary photographer accredited to work with the U.S. armed forces. From Montana to Germany to Russia to North Africa, Bourke-White lent her camera - and her point of view - to capture some of the world's most monumental, disastrous, and powerful moments in history, bringing them (often for the first time) into the center of… Read More

Seattle: Edward Curtis, 1913. First edition. nb. Very Good. STUNNING GOLD-TONED SILVER PRINT OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE BY EDWARD CURTIS, SIGNED BY BOTH TAGORE AND CURTIS. An outstanding union of photographer and subject: Edward Curtis, one of America's most sensitive and accomplished portrait photographers, and Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali poet, composer, playwright, and painter, "generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India." Edward Curtis, known primarily for his lifelong project to document and preserve the traditions of Native Americans through photography, became a master at representing people who were unlike himself. Striving for more than a just a flat visual record, he tried (in his own words), to take "a picture that will show the soul of the people". Through his creative composition and innovative photographic techniques, Curtis helped his subjects come alive in the images. In fact, "frequently Curtis's human subjects are so powerfully… Read More

New York: np, 1903. First Edition. nb. Very Good. EXCEEDINGLY RARE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF YEATS BY ALICE BOUGHTON. ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN SIGNED YEATS PHOTOS. A rare bust portrait of Yeats as a young man, signed and inscribed by Yeats to U.S. politician and later U.S. secretary of state Bainbridge Colby: "To Mr. Bainbridge Colby with kind regards from WB Yeats March 1904." Inscribed in ink on the flush board mount beneath the photograph. On the verso of the photograph mount is written in pencil: "Young Yeats photo [????] not to be used without Mr. Yeats permission." The photograph was taken by the photographer Alice Boughton during Yeats's first American tour (November 11, 1903 - March 9, 1904), almost certainly on December 22, 1903, when Yeats's friend and champion, the Irish-American collector John Quinn, arranged for the sitting with Boughton. Quinn wrote to Alice Boughton on January 7, 1904, to thank her for four prints (two solio prints and two platinum… Read More

Paris: np, 1932. Fine. MAN RAY CAPTURES PICASSO'S ESSENCE IN LEGENDARY PORTRAIT. AN ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH WITH IMPORTANT PROVENANCE: From the famous Sotheby's sale of 1995 of items from the "Estate of Juliet Man Ray, The Man Ray Trust and the Family of Juliet Man Ray". The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Emmanuel "Manny" Radnitzky (1890-1976) grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He displayed creative abilities from a young age and studied to be a painter. He adopted "Man Ray" as his pseudonym and in 1915 formed the New York group of Dada artists with Marcel Duchamp. In the 1920s and 1930s, Paris was the destination for the international avant-garde, offering an exceptional number of galleries, art dealers, and wealthy patrons who promised artistic freedom. Man Ray sailed to the "City of Light" in 1921, joined Parisian Dada and Surrealist circles and became intimate associates with Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and other leading artists. He pursued fashion and portrait photography creating a pantheon of the… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. FIRST EDITION of two landmark journals documenting the revolutionary invention of the transistor: the April 1949 issue of The Bell System Technical Journal containing the first description of the invention (published simultaneously in The Physical Review), and the famous July 1949 "Semiconductor Issue" dedicated entirely to the discuss of the transistor and semiconductor devices. The entire 1949 volume offered. "In the 1930s, Bell Labs scientists were trying to use ultrahigh frequency waves for telephone communications, and needed a more reliable detection method than the vacuum tube, which proved incapable of picking up rapid vibrations... John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley spearheaded the Bell Labs effort to develop a new means of amplification," developing, by 1948, a novel device that would effectively amplify and control electric signals. "At roughly half an inch high, the… Read More