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120 MORRISON, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970 signed and inscribed by the “towering novelist of the black experience” First edition, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Darlene & Bernard, Sincere Best wishes – Toni, Nov.1.1972, NYC”. Inscribed copies of Morrison’s debut novel are scarce in collectible condition. This inscription is notable for being early, while Darlene is the name of one of the characters. On publication the book received little critical attention. However, the distinguished New York Times critic John Leonard was unstinting in his praise, describing Morrison’s prose as “so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry”, and closing by saying that “Miss Morrison’s angry sadness overwhelms”. Morrison’s “singular approach to narrative is evident in her first novel, The Bluest Eye , written in stolen moments between her day job as a book editor and her life as the single mother of two young sons” ( New York Times obituary). Octavo. Original blue cloth-backed grey boards, spine lettered in silver. With dust jacket. Spine and board edges sunned, minor bump to foot of rear board corner, small bump to fore-edge. A very good copy indeed, in very good dust jacket, not price-clipped, toned and lightly rubbed,
regarded as “the first complete classification of the Mosaic and rabbinical laws” ( Jewish Encyclopaedia ), and established Maimonides’s reputation as “the authority par excellence” on the subject: although strongly criticized by some upon publication, “his great work on jurisprudence was in its form, method, style, scope, and structure absolutely unprecedented, in fact revolutionary . . . It became the benchmark for all subsequent writing on Jewish jurisprudence” (Seeskin, p. 35). Hilkhot De’ot (“Laws of ethics or character development”) constitutes the second section of the Book of Knowledge, in which Maimonides outlines the rules of ethical behaviour in relation to the law, interestingly applying Aristotelian virtues to a Jewish legal context. Georgius Gentius (1618–1687) was a German Lutheran orientalist who studied in Leiden, and later with Amsterdam rabbis, two of whom contributed to this edition with two laudatory poems. In the introduction, Gentius praises Maimonides. This edition is also beautifully illustrated with attractive diagrams and tables showing the relationship between vices and virtues. Small quarto (193 × 144 mm). Recent quarter calf and marbled boards, vellum tips, spine ruled gilt in compartments, red morocco label. With printer’s device to title page, woodcut floriated initials and tailpieces, 2 woodcut diagrams and 2 tables. Contents toned, initial and final leaves a little soiled and foxed, but still perfectly legible, a few chips and short tears to lower outer margin of the first three gatherings,
second volume is untouched, and the price of the first volume has been lightly inked over in blank, but with no corrected price added, meaning this is likely to be some later marking, and not any sign of second issue. Provenance: with the ownership inscription of Donald Richie (1924–2013), American author and esteemed critic of Japanese cinema, to rear inner wrapper of volume II. 2 volumes, octavo. Original green and white wrappers printed in black. Housed in a custom green and red cloth flat-back box, red morocco spine label. Pencilled ownership inscription of one A. Lurie to front free endpaper, quite possibly the American novelist Alison Lurie (1926–2020). Printed price on rear wrapper of vol. I inked over. Spine of vol. I leaning, joints lightly rubbed and toned but firm, spines and outer corners creased, lettering on front wrapper of vol. I a little smudged, small bump to rear wrapper of vol. I, internally bright and clean. A very nice set. ¶ Juliar A28.1; Kearney 24. £5,000 [157424]
2 volumes, tall quarto. Original dot-patterned black cloth, spines numbered in white, multicoloured dot-patterned horizontal rectangles across covers with white lettering on front covers, white crow and cat silhouettes on spines, blue endpapers, blue silk bookmarkers. Housed in the original pull-off case. Text printed in blue and black throughout. With illustrated blanks, half-titles, and title pages, and 10 double-page colour illustrations, all by McMurray. In fine condition, a few marks and trivial rubbing to slipcase. ¶ Tomoki Wakatsuki, The Haruki Phenomenon: Haruki Murakami as Cosmopolitan Writer , 2020. £1,500 [159024] 123 NABOKOV, Vladimir. Lolita. Paris: The Olympia Press, 1955 “few books published in this country since the king james bible can have set up more eager expectation than lolita” First edition, first issue. Lolita was originally published with “Francs : 900” printed on the rear covers, but a sudden currency fluctuation at the time of publication meant that the books had to be re-priced to 1,200 francs. Copies of the first issue appear either without a price change, as here, or with the bookseller’s hand-written correction. The second issue appeared with the publisher’s overprice sticker on the rear covers. In this copy, the price of the
without loss of text. A very nice and generally clean copy. ¶ Heller, p. 565; Katchen 92; STCN 097754110; USTC 1014316. J. I. Dienstag, “Christian Translators of Maimonides ‘Mishneh Torah’ into Latin”, in Saul Lieberman & Arthur Hyman, eds., Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee , vol. 1, 1974; K. Seeskin, The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides , 2006. £2,250 [157815] 122 MURAKAMI, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore. Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2017 “memories warm you up from the inside. but they also tear you apart” First Centipede Press edition, signed limited issue, number 116 of 200 deluxe copies signed by the author and illustrator. Kafka on the Shore was first published in Japanese by Shinchosha in 2002. The first edition in English, Philip Gabriel’s 2005 translation, received the World Fantasy Award for 2006, and was one of The New York Times’s “10 Best Books of 2005”. John Updike has compared Murakami’s “dreamlike” narratives to the works of Kobo Abe, likening the dream sequences in Kafka on the Shore to those found in The Tale of Genji , in which Lady Rokujo travels “down the tunnel of her subconscious” (quoted in Wakatsuki, p. 92).
small closed tear to foot of front panel, vertical crease to front flap. ¶ Hilton Als, “Toni Morrison’s Profound and Unrelenting Vision”, New Yorker , 27 Jan. 2020; Margalit Fox, “Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88”, New York Times , 6 Aug. 2019; John Leonard, “Three First Novels on Race”, New York Times , 13 Nov. 1970; all accessible online. £12,500 [158562] 121 MOSES BEN MAIMON (MAIMONIDES); GENTIUS, Georgius (trans.) Hilkhot De’ot sive Canones Ethici. Amsterdam: Joan and Cornelius Blaeu, 1640 17th-century bilingual edition of maimonide’s work on ethical behaviour First edition of Gentius’s Latin translation of Hilkhot De’ot , from the first book of Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah , with a commentary. This is Gentius’s first publication, and one of the earliest translations of a complete section of Maimonides’s extensive compendium of Jewish law into Latin, beautifully printed in parallel with the original Hebrew. Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204) was a Jewish philosopher, astronomer, personal physician to Saladin, and a prominent Torah scholar. His Mishneh Torah , compiled between 1168 and 1177, is
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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