ALCOTT, Louisa May

Autograph Manuscript (Am): Two Pages from Jack and Jill: A Village Story

no date [1880]. Manuscript. Two 7-5/8" x 9-3/4" pages of AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT on two lined sheets of paper consisting of @300 words completely in Alcott's hand. In part: "'Jill goes wherever Jack does & he lets her. He's such a good-natured chap he can't say No.' 'To a girl,' shyly added one of the boys who had wished to borrow the red sled & been politely refused because Jill wanted it. 'He's the nicest boy in the world for he never gets mad,' said the timid young lady recalling the many times Jack had shielded her from the terrors which beset her path to school in the shape of cows, dogs, & boys who made faces & called her 'Fraid cat.'" Much more. Minor soiling, Near Fine. Housed in a Fine custom-made blue half-morocco slipcase with raised bands and gilt lettering on the spine .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 016226

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Autograph Manuscript, Women's Literature, 19th Century American Literature, 19th Century Literature, Children's Literature Autograph Manuscript 19th Century American Literature Children's Literature Literature: American

BARAKA, Amiri (LeRoi JONES)

Signed Typescript: Money. A Jazz Opera

Newark/Washington, DC, December 1978 - January 1979. Manuscript. A photocopied ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT by Baraka consisting of 135 loose pages, many of them with pencil or ink markings and annotations, housed in an orange paper folder with "MONEY/orig)" in Baraka's hand on the front cover. The manuscript is SIGNED in full by the author at the conclusion with the date and place in type. MONEY was first produced Off-Broadway in 1982 with music by George Gruntz, the director of the Zurich opera and orchestra, and later in part at George Wein's New York Jazz Festival in the early 1990s. According to Baraka, MONEY was even "banned in France by the United States" because it was considered anti-American. A few pages with coffee stains, expected general use. Complete and Very Good .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021014

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, African-American Literature, Theater, Jazz, African-American Music, Modern Firsts, Modern First Editions, Beats, Beat Literature, Leroi Jones, Amiri Baraka Manuscript Literature: American Modern First Editions African-American Literature

BARAKA, Amiri (LeRoi JONES)

Typed Manuscript for the Introduction to Hard Facts

[1975]. Manuscript. TYPED MANUSCRIPT (5 pages) of the Introduction to his book of poetry HARD FACTS. Baraka has made several alterations and additions in the text including about 50 words in his hand at the bottom of the fourth page: "The year the class struggle in Blk America became clear & open Segregation [?] & the productive forces loosed in on oppressed [?] just enough to create a vicious verticality, an oppressive class, in collaboration w/ the big bourgeosie who now sat in the white house openly & picked their toes. Near Fine .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021429

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, African-American Literature, Modern Firsts, Modern First Editions, Beats, Beat Literature, Leroi Jones, Amiri Baraka Manuscript Literature: American Modern First Editions African-American Literature

(BRYANT, William Cullen) HOMER

The Iliad of Homer with 5 Pages of Manuscript and 2 Pages of Corrected Page Proofs

Boston, Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1870. First Edition. Hardcover. Two quarto (7" x 9-3/4") volumes in contemporary half brown morocco leather with marbled boards and matching corners, spines with gilt lettering and decorations, marbled endpapers; [2], [xx], 398; [viii], 426 pages. Bound for politician and newspaper editor Whitelaw Reid, with his name stamped in gilt on the base of the spines. Reid corresponded with many major figures of the 19th century including Bryant who was a long-time editor of the NEW YORK EVENING POST. Blank verse translation of THE ILIAD by Bryant. Tipped in to the first volume opposite the corresponding printed pages are 2 pages of Proofs corrected in Bryant's hand. Tipped in and laid loosely in the second volume are 5 pages of MANUSCRIPT on 2 sheets. The larger sheet, tipped in, contains the text for the last 7 pages of Book V of the printed text. The loose sheet contains lines from Book XVI beginning "He spake, and mingled in the hard-fought fray." All told, approximately 1000 words in Bryant's hand of his important translation of this Greek classic. Light rubbing to bindings. Near Fine .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021034

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: William Cullen Bryant, Manuscript, Literary Autographs, 19th Century American Literature, 19th Century Literature, Classics, Homer Signed 19th Century American Literature Manuscript Literature: American

CARLYLE, Thomas

Autograph Manuscript Likely from Frederick the Great

[1853]. Manuscript. HOLOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT completely in Carlyle's hand but not signed of @250 words on the verso of a letter (8" x 9-7/8") addressed to the writer notifying him of his election to the Atheneum. Mostly in ink with additions in pencil, the notes appear to be historical and biographical research in preparation for the writing of his biography of Frederick the Great. The notes spill over to the bottom of the letter. Light creases from folding; writing dark and clear. About Fine and uncommon .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 014516

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Victorian Literature, Scottish Literature, 19th Century British Literature, 19th Century Literature, Thomas Carlyle 19th Century British Literature Manuscript Literature: English Victorian Literature

COOPER, James Fenimore

Autograph Manuscript (Ams) from the Water Witch

[1828]. Manuscript. Unsigned handwritten fragment of his working draft of this novel about the abduction of a woman by a pirate. Two pages in dark ink in his small hand, approximately 600 words, on both sides of an 8" x 3-1/4" sheet. With a separate card SIGNED by the author's daughter, also an author, Susan Fenimore Cooper, dated Aug. 1889 and stating: "From the 'Water-Witch,' written at the 'Casa Tasso,' Sorrento, in 1828." Cooper manuscript material is scarce in the trade. A few small holes affecting text repaired with tissue, minor scattered foxing and soiling. Very Good .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021375

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, 19th Century American Literature, James Fenimore Cooper, 19th Century Literature, Signed Manuscript 19th Century Literature 19th Century American Literature Literature: American

FIELD, Eugene

The Peter Bird: Proofs and Revisions

[1894]. First Edition. Manuscript. The proofs of one of Field's best-known poems consisting of 6 long rather fragile printed leaves with the heading "Sharps and Flats" on the top of one page, the title of his weekly newspaper column, neatly bound into a lovely full brown morocco leather folder with gilt lettering on the front cover and silk pastedowns and endpapers. Each leaf has extensive pencil corrections for publication in the Chicago DAILY NEWS on 4 May 1894. With Field's bookplate on the verso of the front silk endpaper. Peter is a little boy in Kentucky who likes to read and ignores his chores and warnings about a witch. One morning he walks into the witch's fog and disappears. His family and neighbors head into the fog calling for him. Some say the witch in her wrath transmogrified all those good people; That, wakened from slumber that day by the calling and bawling for Peter, She out of her cave in a thrice, and, waving the foot of a rabbit (Crossed with the caul of a coon and smeared with the blood of a chicken), She changed all those folk into birds and shrieked with demoniac venom: "Fly away over the land, moaning your Peter forever, Croaking of Peter, the boy who didn't believe there were hoodoos, Crooning of Peter, the fool who scouted at stories of witches, Crying of Peter for aye, forever outcalling for Peter!" This is the legend of yore told in the state of Kentucky When in the springtime the birds call from the beeches and maples, Call from the petulant thorn, call from the acrid persimmon; When from the woods by the creek and from the pastures and meadows, When from the spring house and lane and from the mint-bed and orchard, When from the redbud and gum and from the redolent lilac, When from the dirt roads and pikes cometh that calling for Peter; Cometh the dolorous cry, cometh that weird iteration Of "Peter" and "Peter" for aye, of "Peter" and "Peter" forever! This is the legend of old, told in the tum-titty meter Which the great poets prefer, being less labor than rhyming (My first attempt at the same, my last attempt, too, I reckon!); Nor have I further to say, for the sad story is ended. Handsome presentation of these scarce proofs, the leaves rather fragile with a couple of splits and one page with a detached segment laid in. Near Fine Eugene Field (1850-1895) wrote children's poetry and light, humorous articles written in a gossipy style. Among his best-known light-hearted poems are "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" and "Little Boy Blue.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 020113

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Children's Literature, Kentucky, Proofs, Eugene Field, Poetry19th Century American Literature, 19th Century Literature Manuscript Literature: American 19th Century Literature 19th Century American Literature

HEARN, Lafcadio [BISLAND, Elizabeth: editor]

The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn with the Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn

Boston & New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906. First Edition. Hardcover. Two volumes in original green cloth with paper spine labels and extra labels tipped in at the rear. One of 200 large-paper copies with an ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT PAGE of Hearn's, in this case an excerpt from THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY. In full: "accomplishments made Busanshi suspect that she had been brought up in the court of some prince, or in the palace of some great lord. She displayed a perfect knowledge of the etiquette and the polite arts which are taught only to ladies of the highest rank; and she possessed astonishing skill in calligraphy, in painting, and in every kind of poetical composition. Busanshi presently fell in love with her, and thought only of how to please her. When scholar-friends or other visitors of importance came to the house, he would send. Touching inscription from a husband to his wife in the year of publication on the front endpaper; light wear to spine tips. Very Good, lacking as usual the dustwrappers and slipcase .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021260

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Lafcadio Hearn, 19th Century American Literature, Limited, Modern Firsts, Japan, Modern First Editions 19th Century American Literature Literature: American Modern First Editions Manuscript

[HOWE, Julia Ward] RICHARDS, Laura and ELLIOTT, Maud Howe

Julia Ward Howe 1819 - 1910

Boston & New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915. First Edition. Hardcover. Two volumes in original cloth-backed boards with gilt-lettered leather spine labels. Copy #236 of 450 copies of the Large-Paper Edition with a leaf of Howe's unsigned AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT tipped in by the publisher, this example with 22 lines of over 100 words, apparently the first page of a speech she was giving to women on the subject of women's suffrage. In part: "But, when I am here to ask for justice to all the women of our community.. They are not afraid of us, but of their sex in general." Illustrated with plates and portraits, including a facsimile manuscript of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Owner's inscriptions on both front endpapers: "Elizabeth Walker Pontefract/from/Jean Charters Pontefract/June 1916." The Pontefracts were related to the Childs and Howe families by marriage; Thomas Marshall Howe, one of Pittsburgh's leading citizens of the late 19th century, was a distant cousin of Julia Ward Howe. Winner of the 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Manuscript pages by Howe concerning women's rights are quite desirable. Spine labels a bit dried and with some cracking; light wear and darkening to the covers. About Very Good, lacking the dustwrappers and slipcase .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 021230

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Women's Suffrage, 19th Century Literature, Feminism, Americana, Manuscript, Pulitzer Prize, Women's Rights, 19th Century American Literature Manuscript Pulitzer Prize Women's Rights Literature: American

MEREDITH, William

The Cheer

New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. First Edition. Softcover. Meredith's own copy of the uncorrected proof in printed wraps. Laid in on a 7" x 5" card is a MANUSCRIPT poem from the book, "Country Stars," written by Meredith and dated January 1975. Near Fine .

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 018128

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Modern Firsts, Modern Poetry, Association Copy Literature: American Modern Poetry Modern First Editions Uncorrected Proof

MILLER, Joaquin

Unpublished Autograph Manuscript: Alaskan. "Let There Be Light

First Edition. Hardcover. Folio (8-1/4" x 11-3/4") consisting of 53 pages numbered to 54 (one page contains two numbers) on lined yellow paper with a few additions at the end on white paper pasted to the yellow pages with a calligraphic title page facing a photographic reproduction of Miller. Bound in 3/4 maroon morocco leather and marbled boards housed in a slipcase of full burgundy morocco leather. Though some of the phrases, such as the title, are used in other of Miller's works, this long narrative poem appears to be unpublished. The poem begins: "In the morning of the world;/Ere the holy stars were born--/Early morning of the world;/O, that wondrous, wondrous morn!" We have at this point not read much else because our lives are short and Miller's handwriting is trying, but we are fairly confident that the text deals at least in part with the Alaskan Gold Rush of the 1890s as Miller visited the Klondike during that time returning to California after six months, exhausted from his adventures, with thousands of dollars of gold dust and $6,000 from a publisher for his Alaskan letters. Fine and rare, beautifully bound The "Poet of the Sierras," also known as the Buffalo Bill of American literature, Miller was indeed one of the more colorful authors of the late 19th century, known for fabricating many features of life. While still a boy he headed from Oregon to California during the early gold rush where he worked in a number of mining camps. He survived several battles with Indians as well as several altercations with the law. He earned his keep mostly from mining and the Pony Express before his writing sustained him.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 017375

Catalogue: Original Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Manuscripts, History, Alaska, California, 19th Century American Literature, Alaskan Gold Rush, Western Americana, 19th Century Literature 19th Century American Literature Literature: American Western Americana Alaskan Gold Rush

PEATTIE, Donald Culross

The Harp of the Birches and Other Poems

n.p. 1909. Softcover. A unique manuscript (5" x 8-1/2") accomplished in a decorative calligraphic style with small illustrations by Anita Helen Parkhurst of poems presumably written by the author when he was 11 years old, seven years before his first commercially published book, BLOWN LEAVES of 1916, and presented to his parents at Christmas. Bound in black limp leather held together with a leather strap in a spiral fashion and with a holograph paper title label on the front cover. The contents consist of ten leaves of stiff brown paper stapled to the binding at the gutter. The title page includes author, title, the name of the calligrapher and illustrator, the dedication to Peattie's parents, and the date of 25 December 1909. The eleven poems include the title poem, Spring and Summer, Savior, We Die, Irish Drinking Song, Moon Rise, Sorrow, Mid Night and Dawn, Pompei, The Storm, and The Ruined City. While the poems are what one might expect of an 11 year old, it is interesting to note that several are concerned with themes relating to natural history, a fitting subject for the writer who would become known to many as America's most lyrical naturalist and whose books would include AN ALMANAC FOR MODERNS, IMMORTAL VILLAGE, A BOOK OF HOURS, THE ROAD OF A NATURALIST, JOURNEY INTO AMERICA, and A NATURAL HISTORY OF TREES. On the inside front cover is the large later bookplate of Donald Culross Peattie. Very Good and absolutely one of a kind Donald Culross Peattie (June 21, 1898 - November 16, 1964) was a U.S. botanist, naturalist, and author. He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday. Peattie has been called America’s most lyrical naturalist. He was essentially a poet, for in his writing he combined science with the spirit of poetry. His work reveals a strong appreciation for beauty and a sense of the unity of nature, considerable philosophic insight, and a concern for good prose. His nature writings are distinguished by a poetic and philosophical cast of mind and are scientifically scrupulous. His best known works are the two books (out of a planned trilogy) on North American trees which he wrote in the late 1940s and early '50s. AN ALMANAC FOR MODERNS, the day-to-day observations and reflections of a sensitive naturalist, was awarded the Gold Medal of the Limited Editions Club. His 1939 FLOWERING EARTH was named the best horticultural book of the year, and in 1940 received a silver medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. His autobiographical THE ROAD OF A NATURALIST was awarded a prize by Houghton Mifflin in 1941.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 008599

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Signed, Horticulture, Rare, Modern Poetry, Inscribed: Environmental Literature, Modern Firsts, Literature: American, Gardening Modern First Editions Natural History First Book Signed

POWYS, John Cowper

Autograph Manuscript Signed (Ams)

[circa October 1933]. Manuscript. Holograph MANUSCRIPT, 23 pages written on rectos of separate 8-1/2" x 11" sheets, SIGNED in the byline. Complete draft of his essay titled "Detachment," with numerous additions and deletions throughout, and with a holograph note at upper right of the first page: "Published in 'The Aryan Path' (for the Bombay Editors)." Powys begins his important essay on spirituality: "Real Detachment begins when we think of our soul as a wayfarer from a far-off country, lodged for a while, 'hospes comesque corporis,' guest and companion of the body," among the tribes of men and upon this satellite of the voyaging sun." He concludes: "It is in relation to individual human beings that Detachment is most necessary of all. The wise man spends his life running away. But luckily he can run away without moving a step. We are all -- men and women alike -- teased by the blue-bottle flies who want to lay their eggs. These are the people who have never learnt and never could learn the art of detachment. They are blue-bottle flies -- as my sister Phillipa says -- and they want to lay their eggs; and they can only lay their eggs in carrion. Not one of us but has carrion in him, carrion in her; and the buzzing blue-bottles, among our fellows, smell this afar off, and fly towards it, and would fain settle upon it and lay their eggs. Here indeed, here most of all is it necessary to exercise the very magic of Detachment, that magic that makes it possible for you to be in one place -- like the man seated on the naked stone by the flowing water -- and yet to be in the heart of the flaming sun and at the circumference of the divine ether. For if you fail to exercise the magic of detachment upon the blue-bottle flies who infest your road they will really lay their eggs -- the eggs of the maggots of civilisation -- in your soul. And then you will believe in the justifiability of vivisection; in the sacrosanct importance of private property; in the virtue of patriotic war; in slaughter-houses, in brothels, in slavery, and in the great, noble, scientific, gregarious, loving, human, undetached art of -- Advertisement. Rousseau was right. It is only by detaching yourself from human civilisation that you can live a life worthy of a living soul." The blue-bottle fly is Powys's symbol for those who have not succeeded in becoming detached, those who cannot find fulfillment in detachment, in solitude. He not only used it in this essay but in at least one of his novels, WOLF SOLENT. Paperclip staining at upper edge of first and terminal pages, occasional small tear or chip. Near Fine The Magic of Detachment" appeared in the October 1933 issue of THE ARYAN PATH.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 020097

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Signed, Manuscript, Spirituality, Modern Firsts, Modern First Editions, Philosophy Signed Literature: English Modern First Editions Manuscript

REED, John

Across the War World (Unpublished Typescript)

At sea, Hillacre, September, 1917. First Edition. Manuscript. Nine pages typed on four 8-1/2" x 11" leaves of Hotel Brevoort letterhead and Scandinavian-American Line letterhead with Reed's name typed at the top right corner of the first page, and pages numbered at the tops of the following pages. With the original envelope addressed in Reed's hand, postmarked twice and stamped "Opened by Censor." Reed's important unpublished typescript was written while he was traveling on board a Danish liner from the United States to Norway during World War I. It was intended to be published in THE MASSES, but the delay in transit -- the first postmark is dated 3 September 1917, and received in Croton-on-Hudson on 11 August 1919, addressed to Mrs. B[oardman] Robinson -- as well as that magazine's legal battle under the Sedition Act must have precluded its publication. Reed begins his essay with a transcription of a notice that was posted on board the ship. It reads: "As this ship belongs to a neutral nation the Passengers are requested, on receipt of war news, to avoid all public manifestations of political sympathies or antipathies./The Captain." Reed describes the appearance of this notice as "startling" and goes on to describe his fellow passengers, commenting on the fact that they share their world views with each other in spite of it. He explains, "The 'neutrality' notice is not needed. Although we have on board Americans, Russians, Danes, a Frenchman and several frankly pro-German Swedes, there are only two real belligerents-- the ship's captain, stoutly pro-Ally, and a naturalized American of Dutch extraction, who is the most patriotic man I have ever seen." Reed continues by saying that many of the second and third class passengers are Jews who had been living in the Lower East Side: "Most of them are political exiles, sent home at the expense of the new Provisional government. You had to prove that you were a political exile, of course, before you got the ticket and two hundred dollars allowed; and to do this it was necessary to appear before the nearest Russian Consul.. What Odysseys the least of these people had endured!" Reed sums up the plight of the returning exiles with a question: "Wasn't Russia their country now, to do with as they pleased, and weren’t they going home to set things right?" In concluding his essay, Reed illustrates the fact that in spite of the war news coming through on the wireless set, the "neutral" journey at sea was as unreal as the news of war: "It is lunch-time. We are eating fresh mackerel, taken on board at Christianssand. Somebody remarks that the mackerel this year are extraordinarily fat.. And looking up, I see that everyone, a little smiling, a little pale, is thinking of what those fat fish have been eating, out there in the North Sea and along the coast of Flanders... Occasional staining, some aging to paper, normal folds from mailing. Very Good John Reed was perhaps the best known left-wing American journalist of the twentieth century. He was portrayed by Warren Beatty in the film REDS, nominated for twelve Academy Awards and winner of three, which centered on Reed's life, his romance with Louise Bryant, and his early death at 33 in Moscow. His best known book, TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, 1919, recorded his eyewitness account of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Reed became head of the U. S. Communist Labor Party in 1919, was indicted for treason, and escaped to the Soviet Union where he worked with Lenin and others. He died of typhus in 1920 and was buried beside the Kremlin wall.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 015418

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, Radicals, Radicalism, Russia, Judaica Typescript Communism World War I Radical Literature

RUSKIN, John

Autograph Manuscript (Am) on Realism in Art and Literature and Its Relation to Morals

[17 January 1882?]. Manuscript. Twelve 5" x 8" pages written on 3 folded leaves, stitched together at the vertical fold, not signed but completely in Ruskin's hand. A presumably complete and untitled essay, possibly unpublished, on realism in art and its relation to morals. Ruskin begins, “Realism in any work of art .. is by no means a modern attribute. We find it in the paintings of Raphael just as unmistakably as in those [of] Meissonier or Duran.. We may very properly call it the natural -- the human -- element of a work of art, and no doubt it is this element which pleases us most in all masterpieces.. But realism is not the sole end, nor even the chief end of artistic creations; if it were, we should prize a photograph more than one of Turner's landscapes.. Now contemporary fiction must be subject to the same laws as past fiction, only its worth must vary according to the merits of the present novelists.. The three greatest English novelists -- Thackeray, George Eliot, and Dickens were minute in their copies of human nature & precise in their character dissection. Of the three, Dickens avowedly wrote for a 'purpose' -- to remedy abuse of a specific character -- to denounce foundling houses, charity schools and courts of chancery, but while he succeeded in mitigating or correcting many of these wrongs, he necessarily pushed his realism too far -- to the detriment of his art.. Dickens invests the lowest classes with romance; he makes them so attractive that you regret you were not born a pauper." Ruskin discusses other British authors as well as the French school: "I think we shall find that the French realistic school (and its imitation in England & America) fails signally. Realism is not to blame as much as the want of art.. We may regard realism as an aid to morals if it is interwoven with the artistic element. If unaccompanied by this, realism in fiction can never lead to the highest creations of genius, may frequently be pernicious, and will probably often be dull." The essay does not appear in the WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN, ed. Cook and Wedderburn (Cambridge, 1903-12). The date is written, apparently in another hand, at the very end of the essay. Minor staining. Near Fine The OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY cites Ruskin’s MODERN PAINTERS as the earliest instance of the word “realism” to mean “close resemblance to what is real; fidelity of representation, rendering the precise detail of the real thing or scene.”.

Charles AgventProfessional seller

Book number: 020995

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript, John Ruskin, Art History, 19th Century Literature, Victorian Literature, 19th Century British Literature, Realism, Charles Dickens Manuscript Art History Literature: English 19th Century British Literature