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Henry James. The Bostonians. Macmillan, London and New York, 1886.

Price: US$383.37 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: The first issue of the first single volume edition of Henry James's critically divisive tragicomedy. The first issue of the first single volume edition of this work, preceded only by the three volume first edition. This is the first issue of the single volume edition, published in May 1886 and identified by two pages of advertisements to the rear with prices provided in dollars. A UK single volume issue was published two months later.'The Bostonians' is a novel that centres on a trio of characters; Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississipi, Olive Chancellor, a Boston feminist, and Verena Tarrant, a protegee of Olive's in the feminist movement.The work was poorly received by North American critics, with Mark Twain damning the work and the people of Boston denouncing it.With two pages of advertisements to the rear.A wonderful copy of this work from the major literary figure Henry James, author of such works as 'The Turn of the Screw' and 'The Ambassadors'. James is viewed as one of the greatest novelists in the English language, placed critically at the intersection of realism and modernism. In the publisher's original cloth binding. Bumping to spine head and tail, with a touch of fading to back strip. Otherwise, externally excellent. Hinges strained but firmly held. Internally, firmly bound. Pages clean and bright. Very Good

Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom

Henry James. The Princess Casamassima. Macmillan, London and New York, 1886.

Price: US$513.32 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: The first issue of the first single volume edition of Henry James's tragic late nineteenth century novel, concerned with radical politics and a political assassination. The first issue of the first single volume edition of this work, preceded by the three volume first edition. The first issue, in the BAL first state binding, with front board and back strip stamped in gilt and black, and blind stamping to the rear board. With the correct date of 1886 to the title page and colophon.An excellent copy of this novel by major literary figure Henry James - author of such works as 'The Turn of the Screw' and 'The Ambassadors' - in which an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, named Hyacinth Robinson, becomes involved in radical politics and a terrorist assassination plot. He meets the beautiful Princess Casamassima, who previously appeared in James novel 'Roderick Hudson'.With an inscription to the half title.A bright copy of this work. In the publisher's original cloth binding. Bumping to spine tail, with loss of cloth and small split to tail of front joint, with board holding firm. Otherwise, externally excellent. Inscription to half title. Internally, firmly bound. Pages clean and bright. Very Good

Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom

JAMES, Henry. Princess Casamassima A Novel.. Macmillan and Co, London, 1886.

Price: US$6500.00 + shipping

Description: First edition, one of 750 sets published in October of 1886. Three octavo volumes. Advertisement leaf at the end of volumes two and three. Publisher's dark green cloth, ruled in black on boards, gilt lettering on the spine. Green coated endpapers renewed. Spine extremities slightly bumped, light rubbing to tips and joints. Uncut. A very good copy. In custom cloth clamshell. "In the middle phase of his career, James wrote two novels dealing with social reformers and revolutionaries, The Bostonians (1886) and Princess Casamassima." (Webster's Dictionary of American Authors, 207) These novels were different in that they strayed from the usual themes found in James' works and focused more on the poor and working-class characters and radical politics. BAL 10577. Edel and Laurence A29a. HBS 64325. $6,500.

Seller: Heritage Book Shop, ABAA, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.

James, Henry. The Princess Casamassima: A Novel.. Macmillan and Co., London, 1886.

Price: US$12500.00 + shipping

Description: First edition in book form of one of James's "three formidable novels" published in the 1880s along with The Bostonians and The Tragic Muse. Octavo, three volumes, original publisher's cloth with gilt titles to the spine, half-titles, 2 pages of advertisements at rear of vols. II and III. From the library of Barton Currie with his bookplate to the pastedown and later Maurice Sendak, although not marked. American journalist, author, and book collector Barton Currie contributed hundreds of articles and stories for publications such as New York Evening World, New York Evening Sun, Harper's Weekly and Good Housekeeping in the early part of the 20th century. Currie wrote from personal experience of the effect of bibliomania on the collector in his memoir Fishers of Books (1931), "The first symptom of bibliomania manifests itself by producing a form of somnambulism. You come out of a bookshop carrying a first edition of something or other. You cannot explain how or why you got it, or what you paid for it. But you have it; and when you arrive home with it you creep off to some secluded room and examine it. Then occurs the first little burning exaltation. Just a little glow to begin with, then by infinite gradations a consuming fire." Best known for his immensely popular illustrated children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak’s career was launched in 1952 with the publication of Ruth Krauss’s A Hole Is to Dig. Their author-illustrator collaboration, facilitated by Harper & Row publisher and editor-in-chief of juvenile books Ursula Nordstrom, became something of a cultural phenomenon, spawning a host of imitators of their “unruly” and “rebellious” child protagonists. Now one of the scarcest and most desirable books in modern children’s literature, Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are faced many opponents and was banned in several libraries upon publication in 1963. Its challengers accused the work as being “too dark” and “traumatizing” to young children due to its often frightening imagery." It would become one of many “good books for bad children” edited and published by Nordstrom who disliked the genteel, sentimental tone of earlier American children’s literature and sought to change its purpose to appeal to children’s imaginations and emotions, rather than serve as adult-approved morality tales. Housed in a custom clamshell box by Zaehnsdorf. An exceptional example with noted provenance. "The Princess Casamassima, a panoramic novel with a vivid English setting, documents a sensitive bookbinder's attempt to come to terms with his illegitimate birth and social disadvantages through involvement in subversive political action. Even more naturalistic than its predecessor [The Bostonians], The Princess reads today like an elegy for the beauty and traditions painfully evolved by civilized society and now endangered by what Yeats called 'mere anarchy'" (Gargano, 122).

Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.

JAMES, Henry.. The Bostonians.. London Macmillan and Co, 1886.

Price: US$22687.50 + shipping

Description: First edition; 3 vols, 8vo; advertisements at end of vols. II & III, the odd marginal spot, not affecting text, otherwise near-fine; publisher's dark green cloth, double-panelled in black, gilt lettering, contemporary ownership inscriptions to the front free endpapers of the first and last volumes, dated 1887, slight bumping to exrtremities, spines very gently rolled but a truly exceptional set of great scarcity thus. A superb set of one of James' most famous but controversial novels. The Bostonians was from its initial publication in serial form, a divisive work, with many reviewers of the time feeling it was uncharitable in its depiction of the liberal and intellectual ambitions of the Bostonians it seemed to send up. Other reviewers felt the work was overly political in its treatment of its subject matter, including the emerging social reform movements of the time, notably feminism, which James himself was, it seems, somewhat ambivalent about. That Olive's apparent attraction to Verena could potentially indicate a lesbian aspect has been the subject of more recent speculation and adds another dimension both to the work and the motives and behaviour of the main characters (The Bostonians refers primarily to these two characters Olive and Verena, 'as they appeared to the mind of Ransom, the southerner and outsider, looking at them from New York' [James, Henry James: Letters. Volume III: 1883–1895, 1980]). Edel & Laurence states that the first printing comprised 500 copies, published 16 February 1886, with a second, undifferentiated impression of 100 copies issued the following month. Edel & Laurence A28a

Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom