Both of these I got from the same book auction:
Posts Tagged ‘signed’
Library Additions: Signed Jack Vance and E.E. “Doc” Smith Firsts
Thursday, March 8th, 2018Library Addition: Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard: Savage Season Graphic Novel
Tuesday, March 6th, 2018Another small press Joe R. Lansdale item:
Lansdale, Joe R. and Jussi Piironen. Hap and Leonard: Savage Season. SST, 2017. First hardback and first limited edition, number 105 of 270 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, new and unread. Graphic novel adaptation of the first Hap and Leonard novel. The IDW trade paperback edition precedes.
I’ll have copies of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Addition: 1/500 Signed, Numbered Hardback Copies of Harlan Ellison’s Troublemakers
Wednesday, February 28th, 2018The Signed Harlan Ellison Buying Spree continues apace, this time with a book that I didn’t realize had a hardback state when it came out:
Ellison, Harlan. Troublemakers. Edgeworks Abbey/iBooks, 2001. First edition hardback, #20 of 500 signed, numbered copies (via a signature plate tipped in on the FFE), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Short story collection. Evidently both trade paperback and hardback were issued in October of 2001, so no precedence that I can find, and the hardback state isn’t in the Locus database. Bought off eBay for $57.50.
iBooks was an odd operation. One of the many projects of book packager Byron Preiss, they did a burst of decent quality trade paperback POD reprints in the 1999-2006 timeframe, trailing off after Preiss’ death in 2005. Troublemakers is one of the few original titles they did, and one of the few hardbacks.
Library Addition: Ray Bradbury’s The R.B., G.K.C., and G.B.S. Forever Orient Express
Saturday, January 6th, 2018Here’s an odd little item I picked up off eBay:
Bradbury, Ray. The R.B., G.K.C., and G.B.S. Forever Orient Express. Joshua Odell Editions, 1994. First edition chapbook original, consisting of a long, skinny (17 1/2″ x 5 1/2″) outer cardstock binding with the four pages of the poem laid in (not stapled or otherwise attached), a Fine- copy with a pinhole through the top of the chapbook and one tiny white scratch to rear, otherwise mint. Reportedly done in an edition of 300 copies. Signed by Bradbury. Poem, longish by Bradbury standards, about Bradbury riding a train with G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw in the afterlife. The rear cover says that this is an excerpt from the forthcoming Journey to Far Metaphor: Further Essays on Creative Writing, Literature and the Arts, a book that Joshua Odell Editions evidently cancelled. This work would later show up in Bradbury’s collection The Cat’s Pajamas. Bought off eBay for $37.79.
Library Additions: Two Signed Harlan Ellison Firsts
Thursday, December 28th, 2017Two more books bought relatively cheap off ebay:
Library Additions: Two Dan Simmons Lord John Press Books
Friday, December 22nd, 2017Lord John Press was an odd press, ranging from small-run SF first editions by Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin and Stephen King to books by John Updike and Gerald R. Ford.
The two Dan Simmons books listed here (of four they did total) were the right author with the wrong titles at the wrong time at the wrong price points and the wrong print runs. Simmons was a hot writer at the time, but these books came after his “miracle year” duo of Carrion Comfort and Hyperion, were not nearly as well-regarded, were post-first limiteds (they didn’t beat the Putnam edition out) at high price points (starting at $125 and going up to $800) in too large a print run for too many states (500 quarter-leather, 250 half-leather, and 26-lettered copies in full leather). And they both came out the same year. They’re nice, but not so awesome as to inspire bibliolust in casual collectors. When I saw those price points and print runs, I went “Gonna pass,” and a lot of other collectors evidently said the same, as these limiteds have littered bookdealer inventories ever since.
I do like and collect Simmons, and I always thought I would pick them up when they got cheap enough. That finally happened.
I also have Entropy’s Bed at Midnight and Summer Sketches, his other two Lord John Press books.
Library Additons: Two Signed Lettered Hardbacks of Postscripts
Wednesday, December 6th, 2017In addition to having stories there, I used to have a subsciption to the signed hardback version of Postscripts magazine Back In The Day. Now I pick up individual issues to round out my collection when I find them cheap. Like these two, which I bought for $25 each from Camelot Books:
Unlike my contributor copy of Postscripts 24/25: The New And Perfect Man, these lettered copies did not come in a traycase, and indeed are not readily distinguishable from the regular signed/numbered editions
I now have signed, numbered copies of all of Postscripts 1-19, 24/25, and 30/31. Which means I’m missing 20/21, 22/23, 26/27, 28/29, 32/33, 34/35, and 36/37.
Library Addition: Henry Kuttner First Signed to Robert Bloch
Monday, October 23rd, 2017I try to collect at least one signature for every writer I seriously collect. I have signatures for H. G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Tom Reamy, to name a few.
I also have a few books signed by C. L. Moore, but not (until this item) any by her husband, Henry Kuttner, who were both behind the Lewis Padgett pseudonym. Kuttner, a first rate writer, died in 1958, and works signed by him seldom come on the market. However, I found the following first edition online, and not only is it signed, it’s an inscribed association copy.
Padgett, Lewis (Henry Kuttner and possibly C.L. Moore). The Brass Ring. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946. First edition hardback, a Very Good+ copy, with uneven fading to the spine (looks to be lightening in relation to the dust jacket) and age darkening to pages, in a Good+ dust jacket with a 1″ chip to bottom front and 1/4″ chipping at head and heel. Not a great copy, but it does have a great inscription on the front free endpaper: “For Bob —/In memory of a happy childhood at the old Basutoland reformatory,/now dust./Hank/(“Lewis Padgett”)”. It also has Bloch’s signature at the top of the page. Currey, page 291 (which says this was in collaboration with C. L. Moore). Hubin, Crime Fiction: 1749—1980, page 309 (which credits this to Kuttner alone). Bloch and Kuttner were friends and collaborators, making this a very important association copy from one SF giant to another. Bought, after much haggling, for $500 from a dealer online.
Library Addition: Signed First of Harlan Ellison’s Chocolate Alphabet
Wednesday, October 18th, 2017Here’s an unusual Harlan Ellison indie comic:
Ellison, Harlan (art by Larry Todd). Harlan Ellison’s Chocolate Alphabet. Last Gasp Eco Funnies, 1978. First edition comic book original, a Fine copy (or “Mint” in comic parlance) save slight age darkening to pages, signed by Ellison. Graphic novel version of a short story that appeared a few years earlier in F&SF. Bought off eBay for $18.96.
Library Additions: Three Signed A. E. van Vogt Books
Wednesday, October 4th, 2017L.W. Currey had another sale, and I found three books signed firsts by A. E. van Vogt, who I previously had no signed books for (plus one other).
