foxed, internally clean and bright. A near-fine copy in the very good dust jacket, toned and unclipped, with chipping, four tape repairs, and a few faint stains. £1,750 [150284] 193 WELLS, H. G. In the Days of the Comet. London: Macmillan & Co., 1906 his POLYAMOROUS FANTASY, INSCRIBED TO HIS DISAPPROVING MOTHER-IN-LAW First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Wells to his mother-in-law, “To Pinnie from H.G.”, who lived with him and his second wife Catherine “Jane” Robbins during the years he published his greatest works, including The Time Machine and War of the Worlds . In the Days of the Comet relates a global wave of polyamorous euphoria resulting from a comet passing close by the earth. The novel scandalized his contemporaries. Wells had begun living with Jane while still legally married to his first wife and her mother strongly disapproved of the match. Nonetheless, when widowed and penurious, she moved in with the couple, though she often ate alone to show her dislike of Wells. Inscribed copies are rare: we have traced only one other in the last 50 years at auction. This copy, with the advertisements dated 20.8.06, is technically the second issue, though only one copy of the first issue (deposited at the British Library before publication) is known. Octavo. Original green cloth, front cover and spine lettered in gilt. 14 pp. publisher’s advertisements at the rear (dated 20.8.06). Very minor rubbing to ends and corners, a lovely fresh copy in excellent condition. £4,500 [152443] 194 THE WHO – HALFIN, Ross. Live at Leeds. Guildford: Genesis Publications Limited, 2000 First edition, limited to 1,500 copies signed by Halfin, together with a CD “Live at Leeds” inside a pocket on the front pastedown. Quarto. Original black quarter leather with brown paper- covered boards, titles to front cover in red, titles to spine gilt. Housed in an illustrated slipcase. Photographs by George Bodner, Jim Cummins, Ian Dickinson, Carl L. Dunn, Robert Ellis, Harry Goodwin, Ross Halfin, Laurens van Houten, Jim Marshall, Paul Natkin, Terry O’Neill, Gilbert Nencioli, Barry
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191 WARHOL, Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975 andy to buck First edition, inscribed by the artist on the half- title, “To Buck Owens, Andy Warhol New Year 78”, the recipient likely the prominent country singer Buck Owens (1929–2006), despite the sentiments expressed in his song “I wouldn’t live in New York City (if they gave me the whole dang town)”. Octavo. Original orange cloth-backed yellow paper boards, titles to spine in white and black, the artist’s initials in black to lower corner of front board, black endpapers. With dust jacket. Very light rubbing at head of boards else a fine copy, in very good jacket, indentation to front wrapper, extremities a little rubbed. £1,500 [153511] 192 WATTS, Alan Wilson. Nature, Man and Woman: A New Approach to Sexual Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1958
A TAOIST’S GIFT TO AN OCCULTIST First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For John G. Fuller, with all good wishes from the author, Alan Watts”, and additionally inscribed in Chinese, “Looking at each other and having a good chuckle – Alan”. Watts’s ideas, rooted in Eastern philosophies, made him “one of the best-known and most influential “gurus” of the spiritual awakening that occurred in the 1960s” ( ANB ). Watts (1915–1973) published The Spirit of Zen in 1936 at the age of only 20 and published a further half-dozen volumes on various spiritual topics in the 1940s and 1950s. His Nature, Man and Woman marked a personal shift toward Taoism. The book chimed with the 1960s “rebellion against conventional Western society and attitudes . . . Many mid-century people, anxious and alienated, spiritually hungry yet dissatisfied with conventional religion, found Watts’ ideas profoundly helpful” (ibid.) John Grant Fuller, Jr. (1913–1990) was an American non-fiction author known for his books on the occult and UFOs. Watts’s friendly Chinese inscription implies a certain mutual playful cynicism between the two men. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, Chinese calligraphy (“zi ran” – “free and spontaneous”) to front cover in gilt. With dust jacket. Publisher’s device to first blank recto. Lightly rubbed overall, edges and endpapers a little
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SPRING 2022
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