Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
DURRELL, Lawrence.. The Black Book - An Agon.. The Obelisk Press, Paris., 1938.
Price: US$352.55 + shipping
Description: First edition. The first volume of the Villa Seurat Series, edited by Henry Miller. Octavo. 260 pages. Wrappers. On the front flap is a statement by T.S. Eliot describing this "as the first piece of work to give me any hope for the future of prose fiction."Ownership inscription erased from front free endpaper. Covers dusty and rubbed at edges. The lower third of the spine has been repaired with some darkening from the glue. Good. The book has been preserved in a handsome folding leather-backed cloth box with gilt rules that very cleverly follow the design on the upper cover of the book, which is to say it looks good on the shelf. Scarce.
Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom
Durrell, Lawrence. The Black Book : An Agon. Obelisk Press, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$495.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: Extremely uncommon first printing of the author's third book. Published as the first volume in the Villa Seurat Series in June 1938 edited by Henry Miller and followed in the series by Miller's White Phagocytes and Anais Nin's Chaotica. The book was banned in the U.S. and U.K. until the 1960s and 70s, respectively, because of its sexual content. Original paper wraps with heavy wear and soiling to the covers, spine cover missing, pages soiled with age toning.
Seller: Hudson River Book Shoppe, Waldwick, NJ, U.S.A.
Durrell, Lawrence.. THE BLACK BOOK.. The Obelisk Press: Paris., 1938.
Price: US$569.25 + shipping
Description: 8.5 x 6, wraps, 260 pp, covers worn, spine creased, stain to spine and rear gutter of front cover, spine worn, bottom frayed, front hinge loose, still better than it sounds. FIRST ED. First Volume of Villa Seurat Series.
Seller: John K King Used & Rare Books, Detroit, MI, U.S.A.
DURRELL, Lawrence. The Black Book. Obelisk, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$608.94 + shipping
Description: Octavo, pp. 260. Original stiff paper wrappers. Some tearing at spine ends, cracking to spine affecting lettering. Sunning and discoloration to both panels, some offsetting to endpapers. Pages browned. A very good copy of a fragile book. First edition. No. 1 in the Villa Seurat series, established by Henry Miller and Laurence and Nancy Durrell as an imprint of the Obelisk Press. Produced as cheaply as possible : as in all copies, pp. 115-118 have been printed in the wrong position on the signature, making it impossible to bind them in the correct order. Although paginated sequentially, the correct sequence of text runs as follows: 114, 117, 115, 116, 118. Pearson A-56. Pearson A-56.
Seller: Neil Pearson Rare Books, London, United Kingdom
DURRELL, Lawrence.. The Black Book. An Agon.. Paris The Obelisk Press, 1938.
Price: US$1028.50 + shipping
Description: First edition; large 8vo (215 x 150 mm.); some toning to margins as usual, small closed tear and ink stamp to final blank leaf; publisher's printed wrappers, 2 minor tape reinforcements to inside of each wrapper with small closed tear to top edge of lower wrapper, but overall very good. A very good example of the true first edition of The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell, published as the first volume in The Villa Seurat Series created by Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin and Durrell as an adjunct to the Obelisk Press. Faber & Faber had initially offered to publish the work in expurgated form, but Durrell declined this option on the advise of Miller; the work was not published in the UK until 1973. 'This is a wild, passionate, brilliantly gaudy and flamboyant extravaganza; it is intrinsically and essentially, the book of a young man Durrell was 24 when he wrote it richly obscene, energetically morbid, very often very funny indeed, self-pitying, but, above all, stylistically and verbally inventive as no other young man's novel of the period was even attempting to be.' (The Observer) Thomas & Bingham A8
Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom
Durrell, Lawrence. Black Book: An Agnon.. The Obelisk Press, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$1750.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, first issue of the first volume in the Villa Seurat Series. Octavo, original wrappers. In near fine condition. A very sharp example, uncommon in this condition. In August 1937, Lawrence and Nancy travelled to the Villa Seurat in Paris to meet Henry Miller and Anaà s Nin. Together with Alfred Perles, Nin, Miller, and Durrell "began a collaboration aimed at founding their own literary movement. Their projects included The Shame of the Morning and the Booster, a country club house organ that the Villa Seurat group appropriated for their own artistic . . . ends." They also started the Villa Seurat Series in order to publish Durrell's Black Book, Miller's Max and the White Phagocytes, and Nin's Winter of Artifice. Jack Kahane of the Obelisk Press served as publisher. "This is a wild, passionate, brilliantly gaudy and flamboyant extravaganza; it is intrinsically and essentially, the book of a young man â" Durrell was 24 when he wrote it â" richly obscene, energetically morbid, very often very funny indeed, self-pitying, but, above all, stylistically and verbally inventive as no other young man's novel of the period was even attempting to be" (Philip Toynbee, The Observer).
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
DURRELL, Lawrence (1912-1990). The Black Book : An Agon. The Obelisk Press, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$1765.00 + shipping
Description: True First Edition (with error in pagination at pp. 114-118), second issue (with erratum slip tipped onto title page), of Durrell's first significant novel and the first volume in the Villa Seurat Series, founded by Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence and Nancy Durrell. 8vo (212 x 148mm): [10],11-260,[2]pp. As with all copies, pp. 114-118 were printed out of order (though paginated sequentially), with the correct sequence of text (pp. 114, 117, 115, 116, 118) written in holograph at foot of each affected page). Publisher's pale green heavy wrappers with French flaps (price of 75 Francs neatly blacked out on front flap), front panel with pale pink rectangle and obelisk motif, spine printed in black, bottom edge trimmed, others rough-trimmed. Small bookseller's label to fly-leaf (Librairie Sinfonia, 68, Champs Elysées, Paris). Gentle lightening to spine, light wear to extremities, mild tanning to about a third of page margins (as usual), a few leaves roughly opened (several with short marginal tears, far from letterpress). An excellent example of this fragile production. Miers & Armstrong 60. Potter & Whiting 19. Thomas & Brigham A8. Pearson A-56. Durrell's first major work, written in the mid-1930's under the influence of Henry Miller and the Surrealist movement; the work in which Durrell later claimed to have "first heard the sound of [his] own voice." T. S. Eliot's endorsement on the front flap, calling The Black Book the "first piece of work to give me any hope for the future of prose fiction," is somewhat suspect praise, given that Eliot was Durrell's editor at Faber & Faber, which would not print The Black Book without expurgating its frank language and explicit sexual content, a compromise that Henry Miller persuaded Durrell to reject. Thomas & Brigham never encountered a copy with the erratum slip, suggesting "that it was not added until a number of copies had been dispatched," and in our experience the so-called second issue is more scarce than the first. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).
Seller: Fine Editions Ltd, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
MILLER, Henry.. Max and the White Phagocytes.. Paris: The Obelisk Press, 1938, 1938.
Price: US$1922.98 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Audrey Beecham, with greetings from the red blood corpuscules. Henry Miller, Paris, 4/11/39". Beecham was a "poet and eccentric" (ODNB), and descendent of Thomas Beecham, founder of the eponymous pharmaceuticals empire. Miller published several of her poems while editor at Delta magazine. She once took an extended holiday from her Oxford studies to run guns for the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. When she left Oxford with a second-class degree in 1937, she moved to Paris, where she befriended Miller, Anais Nin, and Lawrence Durrell. In the 1940s she spent much of her time in London, where she garnered a serious poetic reputation, and befriended Joe Ackerley and Dylan Thomas: "she prided herself on her mastery of martial arts and on her claim to have knocked out Dylan Thomas cold when he made unwelcome advances to her" (ibid.) To the surprise of her contemporaries, she applied for and was appointed the warden of Nightingale Hall, the women's residence at the University of Nottingham, in 1950. Lord David Cecil remarked on her unexpected appointment, "There's no martinet like a reformed rake" (ibid.) This is the second work in Miller's Villa Seurat series. It collects 12 essays and short stories, including six previously unpublished works. Pearson A57a; Porter, p. 11. Octavo. Original tan wrappers with flaps, spine lettered in black with imprint in green, front cover lettered in black on green ground, edges untrimmed. Housed in a custom blue cloth flat-backed box. Toned and rubbed, front joint split at ends but firm, rear wrapper soiled, a few nicks and creases to edges. A very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Durrell, Lawrence. THE BLACK BOOK. Obelisk Press, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$1975.00 + shipping
Description: 1st Edition. Soft cover. First True Edition - Uncut pages. Volume 1 in the Villa Seurat Series, edited by Henry Miller. First edition. First Issue. Original printed wraps. Octavo. 260pp. A cornerstone of prose fiction and long denied publication in the US until Lawrence gained recognition for his masterwork " .Quartet ." This is a near fine copy showing very light use of what has become a Durrell rarity. According to Alan Thomas's Illustrated Checklist/Bibliography, 1983, the first issue did not contain the erratum slip which was added later owing to a mistake in the pagination and only after "a number of copies had been dispatched".Front and end pages uncut. Stiff clear Mylar protective outer wrapper. Neat collector's bookplate of editor, [collector], Morley Kennerley. "The books I own are impeccable. The fine binding lie along the wall in the firelight, snoozing softly in richness." - Lawrence Durrell, The Black Book. Collectible copies of this title are few and far between.
Seller: TBCL The Book Collector's Library, Montreal, QC, Canada
DURRELL, Lawrence.. The Black Book.. The Obelisk Press, Paris, 1938.
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Description: 261 pp. 8vo, publisher's illustrated wrappers. First edition. Neat ink name to half-title; otherwise a beautiful copy with some slight browning and the slightest of use to the extremities of the spine. Much nicer than usually seen.
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 8vo. 260 pp., Soft Covers, Good with splitting along spine, marginal tears, toning, minor creasing. Errata sheet on title page. Most pages in second half uncut. (Brigham, p. 3)Provenance: Collection of Chiefly First Editions by Lawrence Durrell, most signed presentation copies, inscribed to his friend Jeremy Mallinson. Mallinson, was Gerald Durrell's right-hand man from the early days of the Jersey Zoo (now Durrell Wildlife Park).
Seller: Wittenborn Art Books, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.