Literature & Children's Poetry

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Dylan%20Thomas&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dylan Thomas</a>' In Country Sleep And Other Poems, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> by the author.<ul><li>Dylan Thomas (Welsh).</li><li>New York: New Directions, 1952.</li><li>Illustrated with a photograph portrait of Thomas pasted to title,&nbsp;</li><li>One of 5,000 copies printed on Kilmory paper.</li><li>Boldly signed in black ink on the front blank endleaf by Dylan.</li><li>Hardcover, bound in publisher's original red stamped green paper boards, with the original dust jacket.</li></ul> Dylan Thomas's last collection of poetry, published one year before his death and contains the first appearance of Dylan's most famous poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."

In Country Sleep And Other Poems

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first impression of the poems of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=Wilfred%20Owens&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wilfred Owens</a>.<ul><li>Wilfred Owen (English).</li><li>Edited by Siegfried Sassoon.</li><li>London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1920.&nbsp;</li><li>Portrait frontispiece.</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>Part of an edition of 1000 copies.</li><li>Publisher’s red cloth, paper title label to spine, with the dust jacket.</li></ul>&nbsp;&nbsp;Only 1000 copies of this monumental collection were printed, with a second impression coming out the following year. It is probably worth noting that jackets of the second impression are very similar to those on the first. The key therefore is to note the condition of the spine of the book itself. Crucially to be correct it must be entirely unfaded as in this example. Owen is widely regarded as the best of all the Great War poets. He famously died in the very last days of the war having not published a book. Sassoon knew how good these poems were, and ensured they saw publication.

Poems

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">finely bound</a> set of the Cambridge Edition Of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Poetry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Poets</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set 40 volumes.</li><li>Edited by Horace E. Scudder (American).</li><li>Boston &amp; New York:&nbsp;Houghton Mifflin,&nbsp;1896.</li><li>Portrait frontispiece.</li><li>Bound in three-quarters brown calf with marbled boards, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

Cambridge Edition Of Poets

An Edition de Luxe of English <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Essays" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">essayist</a> and <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Poetry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">poet</a> Charles Lamb's life and works.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 12 volumes.</li><li>Charles Lamb (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Macmillan &amp; Co,&nbsp;1899.</li><li>Each volume features a scene depicted in multicolored onlays, set within a single gilt frame.&nbsp;</li><li>Part of an edition of 675 copies.</li><li>Bound by Birdsall in full red morocco, top edges gilt, gilt-tooling on the raised band spines and dentelles.</li><li>Each volume is housed in a fleece-lined slipcase. </li></ul>

The Life and Works Of Charles Lamb

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Fine%2520bindings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">finely bound</a> edition of the Songs and Sonnets of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Fine%2520bindings&amp;query=Shakespeare&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shakespeare</a>.<ul><li>William Shakespeare (English).</li><li>London: Macmillan &amp; Co., 1902.</li><li>Edited by P.T. Palgrave.</li><li>Bound in full red calf with gilt-tooling on the covers and raised band spine, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Songs And Sonnets

A finely bound set of the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Poetry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Poetical</a> Works of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Poetry&amp;query=Percy%20Bysshe%20Shelley&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Percy Bysshe Shelley</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>Percy Bysshe Shelley (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Reeves &amp; Turner,&nbsp;1886.</li><li>Portrait frontispiece.&nbsp;</li><li>Revised with notes and a memoir by William Michael Rosetti. </li><li>Bound by Zaehnsdorf in three-quarters brown morocco with marbled boards, gilt-tooling on the covers and raised band spines, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers. </li></ul>

The Poetical Works

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a> A group of first editions by T. S. Eliot.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3.</li><li>T. S. Eliot (English).</li></ul> The Waste Land. [in] The Dial Vol. LXXIII, No. 5.New York: The Dial Publishing Company, 1922.Quarto.First American appearance of The Waste Land on page 473.Bound in brown wrappers with title on upper spine and advertisements to verso.Housed in a custom brown morocco backed clamshell case. Ash Wednesday.London: Faber &amp; Faber, 1930.Octavo.Bound in original terracotta cloth with gilt title to spine and top edge gilt with green dust jacket. The Cocktail Party.London: Faber &amp; Faber, 1950.&nbsp;Octavo.First edition, state with the misprint "here" for "her" page 29.Bound in emerald boards with gilt titles along spine.

The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday, and The Cocktail Party

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> manuscript of one of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=sylvia%20plath&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Plath</a>'s earliest poems, in a version preceding the 1946 revision published in her junior high school literary magazine and collected nowhere else.<ul><li>Sylvia Plath (American).</li><li>[Wellesley, Massachusetts]: n.p, [circa 1945].&nbsp;</li><li>Single ruled leaf.</li><li>Handwritten in pencil in three stanzas, with title and "by Sylvia" above.</li><li>Housed in a custom gilt-stamped black cloth clamshell case with black leather spine.</li></ul> "The Snowflake Star" was one of a small cluster of early poems in which Plath first began experimenting with a group of images that would in many ways come to define her later work. In "A Winter Sunset," written around the same time (and published in the same issue of her junior high literary magazine The Phillipian), the moon hangs above "the bare, black skeletons of trees." And in "To Miss Cox," from later in 1946, "The winter skies are leaden / The flying snowflakes sting." Plath biographer Heather Clark identifies the beginnings of Plath's "mature poetic voice" in these poems, a voice also heard in "The Snowflake Star." Its opening lines ("On a dark and cloudy day / I wandered in the woods away") point, in all their simplicity, directly ahead to 1956, when Plath would write "I stalk like a rook, / brooding as the winter night comes on [...] Who'd walk in this bleak place?" ("Winter Landscape, With Rooks"); to 1960: "Winter dawn is the color of metal / The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves" ("Waking in Winter"); to 1962: "The woods are a well" ("Stars over the Dordogne"). "The Snowflake Star" revolves around subjects and images that would become enduring in her work: snow, winter, stars, trees. The list of poems in which these ideas are central is long and includes many of her best-known works: "Crossing the Water," "Words" ("fixed stars / Govern a life"), "Winter Trees," "Snow Blitz," "Wintering," "The Snowman on the Moor," "The Munich Mannequins" ("The snow has no voice"), "Winter Words," "To A Jilted Lover" ("a mosaic of stars / diagrams the falling years"), "Elm" — to name only a selection. Metrically precise and lettered in a dauntingly perfect hand, this three-stanza version of "Snowflake Star" was composed before the poet turned 14. Plath's juvenile diaries record that on January 10th, 1945, assigned to write a poem or story about a star, she wrote two: "King of the Ice," and "another even better 'The Snowflake Star.'" The poem was completed by February 21 of that year, but would not appear in The Phillipian until the following year (the only time it was published in any version), in February of 1946. Notably, scholar Edward Butscher's assessment of Plath's juvenilia quotes words and phrases not present in this sparer, starker draft: the "temporary return to strained gaiety and a continued pursuit of the conventional" characteristic of her other winter poems from the same period have not yet been written into the close of this version. Avoiding the "happy thought" which "lingers on" in the final stanza of the published version, this draft ends simply with the word "star," the poem's only unrhymed line, the snowflake just caught, still frozen, in the mittened hand — an ending more in keeping with Plath's later work, where danger always lurks just below the surface of beauty. Material of any kind entirely in Plath's hand is rare on the market. While typescripts of her poems appear from time to time (many submission copies to periodicals and publishers), almost all original handwritten drafts remained with Plath's papers (which now reside variously at Smith College, the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana, and Emory University). This manuscript, which originates with Plath's mother's estate, represents one of just a tiny handful of occasions when a handwritten poem of Plath's has come to market. A rare opportunity not only to own an original work in Plath's own hand, but one that prefigures many of her most important images and themes.

The Snowflake Star | Unpublished Poem

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=Hemingway&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hemingway</a>'s legendary first published book, and among the rarest of his <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first editions</a>.<ul><li>Ernest Hemingway (American).</li><li>[Paris]: (Contact Publishing Co.), (1923).</li><li>&nbsp;[8], 58, [2] pages.</li><li>Original blue printed wrappers, uncut and partially unopened.</li><li>Housed in custom blue cloth slipcase and chemise.</li></ul> The typography and design of Hemingway's first book reflected the new Modernist style for which Hemingway would become known: spare, balanced, striking. In this as in his prose, Hemingway was influenced by Gertrude Stein, who advised a careful pick of typeface for the titles listed on the front wrapper, "good and black, but not squatty like the others" (quoted in Grissom, 26). Three Stories And Ten Poems was issued by Robert McAlmon's formative Modernist press, Contact, one of the original loci of the burgeoning movement. McAlmon also brought out numerous other classic expatriate texts, including Stein's epic monument The Making Of Americans, William Carlos Williams's Spring And Fall, Gertrude Beasley's cult feminist memoir My First Thirty Years, Bryher's pioneering autobiographical lesbian novel Two Selves, and H.D.'s Palimpsest — though it was this Hemingway book that would ultimately become the most famous of all its publications. Poorly constructed and issued in an edition of only 300 copies, Three Stories And Ten Poems has become one of the most sought rarities of the 20th century and a cornerstone for any collection that documents the rise of Modernism.

Three Stories And Ten Poems

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> painted portrait of an unidentified young woman by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=sylvia%20plath&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath</a>.<ul><li>Sylvia Plath (American, 1932-1963).</li><li>(Wellesley, Mass):&nbsp;n.p,&nbsp;[1948 or 1949].</li><li>Gouache painting on thick paper.</li><li>Signed by Plath on verso: "Sylvia Plath / (Age 16) / 26 Elmwood Rd / Wellesley, Mass."&nbsp;</li><li>With Plath estate seal on both front (lower left corner) and back.&nbsp;</li><li>Housed in a metal frame.</li></ul> An original, bold portrait painted by a 16-year-old Sylvia Plath. Plath made visual art throughout her life in a wide variety of mediums: from collage and oils to watercolor and pastels. Before she settled firmly on poetry in college, she seriously considered majoring in art. This early piece, painted while she was in high school (and, given the inscription on the verso, likely submitted to an art contest or competition), is executed in colorful gouache in a decidedly modern, almost Fauvist style, and features an unnamed young woman resting her chin in her hand. The approach to this piece speaks to her early experimentation with the kind of art that would inspire her writing as an adult. Plath would later write to her mother, "I feel I'm developing a kind of primitive style of my own which I am very fond of" (August 28th, 1956). In 1958, she wrote that her "deepest source of inspiration" was "the art of primitives like Henri Rousseau, Gauguin and Paul Klee and De Chirico [...] Once I start writing, it comes and comes" (quoted in Clark, 518). As this letter suggests, Plath did not merely dabble in art: it was in many ways central to her creative practice. According to Dorothy Moss, curator of the 2017 Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Plath's art, ONE LIFE: SYLVIA PLATH, "I think that once you know that she drew and painted and sketched constantly as a child, and realize that she went to college to major in art, you'll start seeing how vivid her descriptions are, and how beautifully she put visual images into words." That exhibition prominently featured Plath's painting "Triple-Face Portrait" (1950), which shares a decidedly similar sensibility with this piece. A moving and vibrant original work from one of the defining authors of the 20th century, capturing the youthful exuberance she would transform from visual media into the written word

Untitled Portrait Of A Woman

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, third printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=emily%20Dickinson&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dickinson</a>'s Poems: Third Series.<ul><li>Emily Dickinson (American).</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;Roberts Brothers,&nbsp;1906.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>200 pages.</li><li>Dark grey spine with gilt lettering.</li></ul>

Poems: Third Series

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, second printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets&amp;query=Emily%20Dickenson&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Emily Dickenson</a>'s Poems: Third Series.<ul><li>Emily Dickinson (American).</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;Little, Brown and Company,&nbsp;1898.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>200 pages.</li><li>Dark green spine with gilted lettering. </li></ul>

A second edition, first printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets&amp;query=T.S%20Elliot&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">T.S Elliot</a>'s The Waste Land.<ul><li>T.S Elliot (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Boni and Liveright,&nbsp;1922.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>64 pages.</li><li>Limited Edition, number 562/1000.</li><li>Black spine with gilt lettering.</li></ul>

The Waste Land

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a><ul><li>Sold as a set of 10.</li></ul> Horatio Alger Jr. (American).Do and Dare. Or, A Brave Boy’s Fight for Fortune.Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1884.Duodecimo.Presumed first edition, first state with deluxe cloth and no ads in back.Bound in original mustard cloth with pictorial black stamped titles on upper and spine, with decorative gilt and gilt compartments on spine, pictorial endpapers. Matthew Arnold (English).Merope. A Tragedy.London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, &amp; Roberts, 1858.Octavo.Presentation copy Half title, 32 pages with ads at rear.First edition.Bound in original dark green cloth stamped in blind, titles in gilt on spine, orange endpapers; inscription from the publisher on half title, a near fine copy. John Davidson (Scottish).New Ballads.London and New York: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1897.Duodecimo.12 pages with publisher’s ads at rear.First edition.Bound in original black cloth with pictorial gilt stamped titles and birds on upper, gilt titles on spine. John Davidson (Scottish).The Last Ballad.London and New York: John Lane, 1899.Duodecimo.First edition.Bound in original black cloth with pictorial gilt stamped titles and birds on upper, gilt titles on spine. Henry Longfellow (American).The Song of Hiawatha.Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855.Octavo.12 pages with ads at the rear, dated November 1855.First edition, first issue."Dove” on p. 96 rather than”dive” and missing the letter “n” on p.279 in the word “one.”Bound in original decoratively blocked brown cloth ruled in blind, with gilt titles on spine, yellow endpapers, early bookplate on front endpaper.Housed in a custom terra-cotta clamshell case with gilt titles on spine. John Masefield (English).Salt Water Ballads.London: Grant Richards, 1902.Octavo.First edition, first issue of Masefield’s maritime-themed classic.Bound in original dark blue buckram, top edge gilt.Housed in a collector’s clamshell case with gilt titles on spine. George Meredith (English).Modern Love. And Poems of the English Roadside with Poems and Ballads.London: Chapman &amp; Hall, 1862.Octavo.First edition, first issue.Bound in original green cloth ruled and stamped in blind with decorative textural boards (John Carter's "A" binding), titles in gilt on spine, yellow endpapers.Housed in a collector’s chemise case. Algernon Charles Swinburne (English).Locrine. A Tragedy.London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1887.Octavo.32 pages with publisher’s ads at the back.First edition.Bound in original green cloth with gilt ruled upper, titles and publisher’s motif in gilt on spine; foxing at front and back, else a near fine copy. Walt Whitman (American).November Boughs.Philadelphia: David McKay, 1888 (1891).Large octavo.First edition, third printing made for distribution among Whitman’s friends and colleagues, with issue points, "melee" on p. 6, and "in the least," on p. 11 [Myerson].Printed as a large paper edition of possibly 400, likely from the sheets that were, of Whitman’s original intention, meant to include the poem "Good-Bye My Fancy" but didn’t due to his failing health.Bound in forest green cloth on bevel-edged boards with titles stamped in gilt on upper and spine, toe edge gilt, 1 p. advertisement at back. William Butler Yeats (Irish).The Secret Rose.London: Lawrence &amp; Bullen, Limited, 1897.Octavo.Half titles, frontispiece, with 6 illustrated plates by J.B. Yeats, titles in red and black.Bound in original blue cloth with extra pictorial gilt boards and spine, lavishly decorated by Althea Gyles.

Collection of American Poetry Works including The Song of Hiawatha and November Boughs

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a> First edition of Thomas' Twenty-Five Poems.<ul><li>Dylan Thomas (Welsh).</li><li>London: J.M. Dent &amp; Sons Ltd., 1936.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in original gray boards, spine lettered in blue in original jacket.</li></ul>

Twenty-Five Poems

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a> First edition of Thomas' Deaths and Entrances.<ul><li>Dylan Thomas (Welsh).</li><li>London: J.M. Dent &amp; Sons Ltd., 1946.</li><li>Duodecimo.</li><li>Bound in original orange cloth with spine gilt-lettered and first two leaves just trimmed as a part of the binding process and in original dust jacket.</li><li>Housed in red and black morocco clamshell case.</li></ul>

Deaths and Entrances

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of Les Filles Du Feu (The Daughters Of Fire).<ul><li>Gérard De Nerval [Gérard Labrunie] (French).</li><li>Paris:&nbsp;D. Giraud,&nbsp;1854.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>333 pages.</li><li>Text is in French.</li><li>Quarter-bound in red leather with marbled paper boards, spine with gilt lettering.</li></ul> Gérard De Nerval (1808-1855) was the pen name of Gérard Labrunie, a French writer, poet, translator, and essayist. He was a major figure in French romanticism best known for his novellas and poems, including the collection&nbsp;Les Filles du feu&nbsp;(English:&nbsp;The Daughters of Fire). This volume includes the novella&nbsp;Sylvie&nbsp;and&nbsp;Les Chimères (The Chimeras), a sequence of twelve sonnets, including the famous poem "El Desdichado." De Nerval influenced several notable authors and artists, including Charles Baudelaire, the Symbolist poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, and the Surrealists, such as André Breton. He also influenced his readers, introducing them to German Romantic authors like Schiller and Goethe. De Nerval's death by suicide in 1855 was immortalized by Gustave Doré's&nbsp;La Rue de la Vielle Lanterne.

Les Filles Du Feu / The Daughters Of Fire

A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;North And South by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Elizabeth%20Bishop&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Elizabeth Bishop</a>.<ul><li>Elizabeth Bishop (American).</li><li>Cambridge, Massachusetts:&nbsp;Houghton Mifflin Company,&nbsp;1946.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>54 pages.</li><li>Inscription on title page from Elizabeth Bishop to a previous owner, signed flat by Elizabeth Bishop.</li><li>Aged light blue spine with aged white lettering, dust jacket price is uncut.</li></ul> Elizabeth Bishop was born February 8, 1911 in Worcester, MA. She was orphaned at 5 years old, moving in at first with her maternal grandparents on a farm in Nova Scotia, but later being taken from them to live once more in Worcester with her father's wealthier family. Both these periods are chronicled in Bishop's poems. Bishop would receive little formal schooling until high school due to chronic illness. It would be at the Walnut Hill boarding school were her first poems would be published in a student magazine. At Vassar College, Bishop would found her own literary magazine Con Spirito with writer Mary McCarthy and others. This work and a friendship with the college librarian led Bishop to meet the poet Marianne Moore with whom she would maintain a lifelong friendship until Moore's death in 1972. After college, Bishop would spend nearly the rest of her life traveling around the world living on an inheritance from her father and sparse employment. After publishing her first book of poetry, North &amp; South in 1946, Bishop would notably become a Consultant of Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949-1950 and win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1956. These impressive achievements would not have been possible without Bishop's first book North &amp; South which released in 1946 and won the Houghton Mifflin Poetry Award that same year. This book brings together several of Bishop's most notable poems including "The Man-Moth" (so named for a newspaper misprint of mammoth) and "The Fish" which describes a caught fish in excruciating detail.

North And South

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks.<ul><li>Gwendolyn Brooks (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Harper &amp; Brothers,&nbsp;1949.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>60 pages.</li><li>Inscription on title page reading "For Dick, Sincerely Gwendolyn Brooks", dated 'October 29, 1991'.</li><li>Contains a monochrome frontispiece and a loose blue "Pulitzer Prize Winner 1949" poster.</li><li>Dark brown spine with aged white lettering, dust jacket is wrapped in a mylar covering, price is uncut.</li></ul> Gwendolyn Brooks was born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, but moved at six weeks to the South Side of Chicago as a part of the Great Migration. A born writer, Brooks was greatly encouraged to write by her mother, getting her first poem published at 13 and becoming a regular contributor to the black-run paper The Chicago Defender by age 18. Brooks would always feel her true home was Chicago, and her works have always focused on the black experience there. Annie Allen released in 1949 and would be Brooks's second book of poetry, the first being A Street in Bronzeville released in 1945. It released to great critical acclaim, earning the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize the same year. The poems follow a young black girl, Annie, growing into womanhood in Bronzeville Chicago. The book is dominated by "The Anniad", a heroic poem written to mimic Virgil's "Annead", Annie's heroism coming from her survival against steep adversity. The book ends with Annie's outlook on the world she'd like to change.

Annie Allen

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">set</a> of limited edition Letterpress <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets&amp;query=Shakespeare&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shakespeare</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 39 volumes.</li><li>William Shakespeare (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;The Folio Society,&nbsp;1982-2008.&nbsp;</li><li>Folios.</li><li>Each folio is three quarter bound in leather, with gilt lettering to spine, marbled paper boards, gilt top, deckled text-block, silk ribbon bookmark, and accompanied by a companion Octavo.</li><li>The Folio Tragedies (Vols. 1-12) are bound in red leather with red cloth-bound companion Octavos and red clamshell cases.</li><li>The Folio Comedies (Vols. 13-28) are bound in green leather with green cloth-bound companion Octavos and green clamshell cases.</li><li>The Folio Histories (Vols. 29-38) are bound in blue leather with blue cloth-bound companion Octavos and blue clamshell cases.</li><li>The Folio Sonnets &amp; Poetry (Vol. 39) is bound in teal leather with teal cloth-bound companion Octavo and teal clamshell case.</li><li>All volumes have a matching limitation number (#300).</li></ul> CONTENTS: Volume 1.&nbsp;Anthony and Cleopatra&nbsp;(Folio 126 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo xi, 388 pages)Volume 2.&nbsp;Coriolanus&nbsp;(Folio 127 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo ix, 388 pages)Volume 3.&nbsp;Cymbeline&nbsp;(Folio 122 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 287 pages)Volume 4.&nbsp;Hamlet&nbsp;(Folio 129 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo ix, 406 pages) Volume 5.&nbsp;Julius Caesar&nbsp;(Folio 98 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo ix, 253 pages)Volume 6.&nbsp;King Lear&nbsp;(Folio 115 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo x, 321 pages)Volume 7.&nbsp;Macbeth&nbsp;(Folio 92 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo xii, 249 pages)Volume 8.&nbsp;Othello&nbsp;(Folio #300/3750; companion Octavo x, 491 pages)Volume 9.&nbsp;Romeo and Juliet&nbsp;(Folio 113 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 450 pages)Volume 10.&nbsp;Timon of Athens&nbsp;(Folio 87 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 370 pages)Volume 11.&nbsp;Titus Andronicus&nbsp;(Folio, 97 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo ix, 226 pages)Volume 12.&nbsp;Troilus and Cressida&nbsp;(Folio 120 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo vii, 205 pages)Volume 13.&nbsp;All's Well That Ends Well&nbsp;(Folio 103 pages, #300/1000 copies, closed tear to back free endpaper; companion Octavo ix, 245 pages)Volume 14.&nbsp;As You Like It&nbsp;(Folio 94 pages, #300/3750 copies; x, 245 pages)Volume 15.&nbsp;Comedy of Errors&nbsp;(Folio 75 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo viii, 232 pages)Volume 16.&nbsp;Love's Labour's Lost&nbsp;(Folio 101 pages, #300/1,000 copies; companion Octavo viii, 263 pages)Volume 17.&nbsp;Measure for Measure&nbsp;(Folio 100 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 255 pages)Volume 18.&nbsp;The Merchant of Venice&nbsp;(Folio 97 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo xi, 241 pages)Volume 19.&nbsp;Merry Wives of Windsor&nbsp;(Folio 92 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 242 pages)Volume 20.&nbsp;A Midsummer Night's Dream&nbsp;(Folio 82 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo ix, 275 pages)Volume 21.&nbsp;Much Ado About Nothing&nbsp;(Folio 93 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 214 pages)Volume 22.&nbsp;Pericles&nbsp;(Folio 90 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 306 pages)Volume 23.&nbsp;The Taming of the Shrew&nbsp;(Folio 101 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo 248 pages)Volume 24.&nbsp;The Tempest&nbsp;(Folio 80 pages; #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo x, 248 pages)Volume 25.&nbsp;Twelfth Night&nbsp;(Folio 87 pages, #300/3750 copies; companion Octavo viii, 247 pages)Volume 26.&nbsp;Two Gentlemen of Verona&nbsp;(Folio 88 pages #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 190 pages)Volume 27.&nbsp;The Two Noble Kinsmen&nbsp;(Folio 112 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 233 pages; mild wear to cardboard insert separating Folio and Octavo)Volume 28.&nbsp;The Winter's Tale&nbsp;(Folio 110 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo viii, 295 pages; mild bumping to clamshell case)Volume 29.&nbsp;Henry IV Part 1&nbsp;(Folio 101 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 315 pages)Volume 30.&nbsp;Henry IV Part 2&nbsp;(Folio 111 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 287 pages)Volume 31.&nbsp;Henry V&nbsp;(Folio 109 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 330 pages)Volume 32.&nbsp;Henry VI Part 1&nbsp;(Folio 109 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 256 pages) Volume 33.&nbsp;Henry VI Part 2&nbsp;(Folio 123 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo x, 319 pages)Volume 34.&nbsp;Henry VI Part 3&nbsp;(Folio 121 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo x, 392 pages)Volume 35.&nbsp;King Henry VIII&nbsp;(Folio 115 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 230 pages)Volume 36.&nbsp;King John&nbsp;(Folio 100 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 303 pages)Volume 37.&nbsp;Richard II&nbsp;(Folio 106 pages, #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo x, 297 pages)Volume 38.&nbsp;Richard III&nbsp;(Folio, 133 pages; #300/1000 copies; companion Octavo ix, 414 pages)Volume 39.&nbsp;Sonnets and Poems&nbsp;(Folio 222 pages, #300/1980 copies; companion Octavo ix, 750 pages).

Letterpress Shakespeare

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Fine%2520bindings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">finely bound</a> first trade edition of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=edgar%20allan%20poe&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Poe</a>'s Tales Of Mystery And Imagination.<ul><li>Edgar Allan Poe (American).</li><li>Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.</li><li>London: George G. Harrap &amp; Co., Ltd., 1935.</li><li>Small folio.</li><li>12 tissue guarded color plates and 17 others.</li><li>Bound in full black morocco, raised bands, gilt lettered spine, gilt skeleton and title to front cover, gilt dentelles, marbled pastedowns and endpapers, all edges gilt, by Zaensdorf for E. Joseph.</li></ul>

Tales Of Mystery And Imagination

An Artist's Edition of the works of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=Henry%20Wadsworth%20Longfellow&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Longfellow</a>, accompanied by a <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> check.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 11 volumes.</li><li>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American).</li><li>Illustrations by John Singer Sargent and Remington.</li><li>Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1904.</li><li>Includes a check made out to Longfellow and endorsed by him on the back in volume 1.</li><li>Bound in three-quarters red morocco, ribbed gilt decorated spines, top edges gilt, others uncut, marbled pastedowns and endpapers.</li></ul>

The Complete Works Of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Illustrated" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">illustrated</a> copy of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=The%20Rub%C3%A1iy%C3%A1t%20of%20Omar%20Khayy%C3%A1m&amp;tab=objects" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám</a>.<ul><li>Omar Khayyám (Persian).</li><li>Illustrated by Willy Pogany.</li><li>Lithograph-printed by McLagan &amp; Cumming of Edinburgh.</li><li>London: George G. Harrap &amp; Co., 1909.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>16 tipped-in color-plates.</li><li>Bound in blue-green morocco by Sangorski &amp; Sutcliffe for Marshal Field and Company, panels ruled in gilt, gilt spine in 6 compartments, all edges gilt.</li></ul> This edition was based on Edward Fitzgerald's translation, first published in 1859. The poem presents an interesting challenge to any reader trying to sort through its profound symbolism and not-so-obvious theme, and gained recognition over the course of the nineteenth century as a growing 'cult of the Rubáiyát' found expression in 'the Omar Khayyám Clubs of England and America' (Yohannan, p.202).

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

A finely bound set of the Vailima Edition of The Works Of Robert Louis Stevenson.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 26 volumes.</li><li>Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Charles Scribner's Sons,&nbsp;1921.</li><li>Portrait of author frontispiece.</li><li>Limited to 1,030 copies of which this is 7.</li><li>Bound in three-quarters black morocco with marbled boards, covers and raised band spine are gilt-tooled, top edges gilt, with marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

The Works Of Robert Louis Stevenson

The Mandalay Edition of the works of Rudyard Kipling.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 13 volumes.</li><li>Rudyard Kipling (English).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Doubleday, Page &amp; Company,&nbsp;1925.</li><li>Bound in three-quarter red morocco with red linen boards, covers and raised band spines are gilt-tooled, top edges gilt.</li></ul>

The Works of Rudyard Kipling

A finely bound Albany Edition of The Works of Lord Macaulay.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 12 volumes.</li><li>Lord Macaulay (English).</li><li>London: Longmans, Green &amp; Co., 1898.</li><li>Includes portrait frontispiece.&nbsp;</li><li>Limited to 250 copies, of which this is 218.</li><li>Bound in full red morocco with gilt tooling on the covers and raised band spine, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers with dentelles.</li></ul>

The Works of Lord Macaulay

A finely bound edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.<ul><li>Omar Khayyám (Persian).</li><li>Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.</li><li>London:&nbsp;Macmillan &amp; Co., Ltd.,&nbsp;1899.</li><li>Bound in full brown morocco with the cover displaying floral gilt-tooled detailing with red inlay, the spines display raised bands, floral panel details and label lettering, all gilt-tooled with red inlay flowers, the top edge is gilded with floral gilt-tooled turn-ins and marbled endpapers.</li></ul>

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

A first edition, first impression, trade-issue copy of Joyce’s last and most innovative prose work, Finnegans Wake.<ul><li>James Joyce (Irish).</li><li>London: Faber &amp; Faber, 1939.</li><li>Large octavo.</li><li>Bound in the publisher’s burgundy cloth, titles to spine gilt, with the unclipped dust jacket, housed in green morocco gilt solander box.&nbsp;</li></ul> One of 3,400 sets of sheets for the trade edition of Finnegans Wake which were printed for Faber. Of these, 2,255 were bound and sold at 25 shillings, 950 were destroyed by the publisher and the remaining were gratis copies. It is possible that the 950 discarded sets of sheets remained unsold because of the price, which Joyce believed was too high. "'A way alone aloved alost along the…' If Finnegans Wake is a key book, it is a key which needs a key" (Connolly). "His work is enriched by such large resources of invention and allusion that its total effect is infinite variety" (Harry Levin).

Finnegans Wake

A finely bound second Baskerville quarto edition of Paradise Lost.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2 volumes.</li><li>John Milton (English).</li><li>Thomas Newton, D.D. (English).</li><li>Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books. The Author John Milton. From the Text of Thomas Newton D.D., with Paradise Regain'd. A Poem, In Four Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes: and Poems Upon Several Occasions. The Author John Milton. From the Text of Thomas Newton, D.D.</li><li>Birmingham: Printed by John Baskerville for J. and R. Tonson in London, MDCCLIX [1759].</li><li>Small quarto.</li><li>Frontispiece portrait.</li><li>Bound in near-contemporary straight-grained red morocco, with elaborate gilt spines and covers, with peony and other floral motifs, wheat, acorns and harp motifs, with gilt dentelles, all edges gilt.</li></ul>

Paradise Lost

A finely bound edition of Quintus Horatius Flaccus.<ul><li>Horace (Roman).</li><li>Birminghamiae [Birmingham]:&nbsp;Johannis Baskerville [John Baskerville],&nbsp;1770.&nbsp;</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>344 pages.</li><li>With engraved title vignette.</li><li>Large paper edition, the first in quarto format and the first to use Whatman's new wove paper.</li><li>Half title reads: "Quinti Horatii Flacci Carminum Libri Quatuor."</li><li>Bound in full red morocco, with gilt tooling to boards and banded spine, with gilt-lettered black leather spine labels, all edges gilt, with marbled end papers.</li></ul>

Quintus Horatius Flaccus

A finely bound set of the works of Virgil.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4 volumes.</li><li>Virgil (Roman).</li><li>London:&nbsp;R. Dodsley,&nbsp;1753.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavos.</li><li>With engraved frontispieces, folding map and two folding plates.</li><li>Bound in full brown calf with blind tooling to boards and red leather labels bearing gilt titling to spines</li></ul>

The Works of Virgil

A third edition set of the works of Virgil, as translated by John Dryden.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>Virgil (Roman).</li><li>Translated by John Dryden.</li><li>London:&nbsp;J. Tonson,&nbsp;1709.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavos.</li><li>Frontispiece present in all three volumes, along with numerous engraved full-page plates in each volume.</li><li>Bound in early brown calf with gilt tooling to boards and spine and labels bearing gilt titling to spines.</li></ul>

A finely bound edition of Boaden's Shakespeare inquiry.<ul><li>James Boaden (English).</li><li>An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Various Pictures and Prints, Which, from the Decease of the Poet to Our Own Times, Have Been Offered to the Public as Portraits of Shakespeare.</li><li>London: Printed for Robert Triphook [B. M'Millan, Printer, Bow-street, Covent-Garden], 1824.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>206 pages.</li><li>Bound in full red morocco with five Cosway-style watercolor miniatures under glass on the upper cover, by Riviere &amp; Son, in open-faced red cloth slipcase.</li></ul>

An Inquiry Into the Authenticity of Various Pictures and Prints...of Shakespeare

A first edition, finely bound copy of The Raven and Other Poems.<ul><li>Edgar Allan Poe (American).</li><li>The Raven and Other Poems [and:] Tales.</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Wiley and Putnam,&nbsp;1845.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Raven with half title, "Wiley and Putnam's Library of American Books," name of stereotyper T. B. Smith on the title verso; Tales, third printing with three-line copyright.</li><li>Bound in three quarter blue morocco gilt, t.e.g., by Riviere &amp; Son.</li></ul> Students all over the world know of the title poem, and many know others as well: "The Conqueror Worm," "Eulalie," "Leonore," "To Helen," etc. "The most important volume of poetry that had been issued up to that time in America..." —Grolier American 56 A choice set of the major books published during Poe’s lifetime, BAL’s “reissue B,” issued by Wiley and Putnam in April 1846, comprising the first edition sheets of The Raven and The Tales in either second or third printing (here in BAL’s third printing, distinguishable by the three-line copyright notice). BAL notes that “impressions from the plates of several pages vary in an anomalous way. For instance, the first three letters of the last three lines of p. 160 appear both battered and intact within the three printings.” This copy has slight battering to “I” and “o” on p. 160, while the “v” is intact. The “E” in the running head on p. 187 is broken here (as in most copies of all printings. BAL cautions, “It is possible that the printings designated below as second and third are in fact two states of the same printing.” This copy is textually complete in both books, including the integral ads; the volume has been rebound without the separate gatherings of advertisements that followed the text.

The Raven and Other Poems

Basquiat executed this one line poem circa 1982 while living with a noted Gray bandmate.<ul><li>Single page removed from notebook.</li><li>The line reads: "SOME BORING HARBOR / CAMERAS MILD SUSPENCE."</li><li>Ink on paper.</li><li>Obtained directly from a prominent Basquiat Gray band member whose typewritten prose appears on the reverse.</li><li>Accompanied by a signed letter of provenance from the aforementioned.</li></ul> Here, Basquiat begins to play with the idea of beginning a screenplay, with the work’s empty space and liner notes leaving us to surreally fill in the blanks. The work further echoes Basquiat’s one-line street poems during his (earlier) SAMO period and famed notebook entries, not to mention his interest in beat poetry and fragmented prose scenarios mirroring the style and influence of William S. Burroughs. During the very early part of his career, Basquiat also experimented with screenwriting.

Handwritten One Line Poem

A signed copy of L'Alouette.<ul><li>Joan Miró (Spanish).</li><li>Text by René Char (French).</li><li>Paris: GLM, 1954.</li><li>Small oblong quarto.</li><li>One leaf, unfolded.</li><li>Signed by the author and the artist on the verso.</li><li>Part of a limited edition, one of 30 copies hand-colored by Miró, from a total edition of 100.</li><li>Lithograph heightened with watercolor, pastel and India ink on wove paper.</li></ul>&nbsp;One of 30 copies with original hand-coloring by Miró. This example has extensive additions, with a blue background to the text, the artist’s fingerprints in red and black, ink line drawings to the lithograph, as well as brightly colored dots to the justification. The artist decorated the thirty examples with different illustrations, making them each unique but retained some similar elements such as the red dots and line drawings. René Char and Joan Miró had met during the Surrealist period, but their friendship dated from the post-war years when Miró returned to France. L'Alouette is their third collaborative work. A notably scarce work even for unsigned examples both on the market and institutionally. There are only two copies in libraries, at Yale University and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Literature & Children's Poetry

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Dylan Thomas

Wilfred Owen

Horace E. Scudder

William Shakespeare

Percy Bysshe Shelley

T.S. Eliot

Sylvia Plath

Ernest Hemingway

Sylvia Plath

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

T.S. Eliot

Walt Whitman, Various Authors, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

Gérard de Nerval

Elizabeth Bishop

Gwendolyn Brooks

William Shakespeare

Edgar Allan Poe

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Omar Khayyam

Robert Louis Stevenson

Rudyard Kipling

Lord Macaulay

Omar Khayyam

James Joyce

John Milton

Horace

Virgil

Virgil

James Boaden

Edgar Allan Poe

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Joan Miró, René Char