A short list of twenty-five items with little more to connect them than my own eclectic interests. A print dealer recently referred to my taste as "nerdy." When you see this list, you'll probably agree, but in a good way.
First Edition. The first issue of an uncommon city directory for a small town south of Portland. It was published to coincide with the Lewis and Clark Exposition. "Comprising an alphabetically arranged list of business firms, private citizens and public institutions; classified list of all trades, professions and pursuits; an.....
Price: $250
![Item No: #362366 Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes 1745 [and]...](https://downtownbrown.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/362366.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1674764209)
A reprint of two anti-slavery tracts issued by Leonard Baskin's Gehenna Press. With "An afterword on Woolman & Slavery" by Frederick B. Tolles. "Two hundred & fifty copies were printed at The Gehenna Press to memorialize the bicentennial of John Woolman's death in 1772. The texts follow the first editions.....
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First Edition. An introductory text on building military encampments and large-scale maneuvers by the Mexican general who led the siege of Veracruz during the French occupation of his country. Following the successful ouster of the French, Benavides was given a long sabbatical to recover from his injuries. He traveled to.....
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First Edition. An important California book. "A valuable and scarce book dealing with the settlement of the northwest coast counties of California, and treating in detail the many Indian uprisings of Trinity, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties during the first fifteen years of California's statehood. In this book a full.....
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First Edition. Scottish-South African explorer Archibald Colquhoun "traversed through the unknown lands of western China and scampered along the jungle-covered middle stretches of the Mekong River. When he returned to London he lectured widely and wrote... Burma and the Burmans... He had one message: All that stood in the way.....
Price: $500
Life and Times is Douglass's third autobiography, following his Narrative (1845) and My Bondage, My Freedom (1855). This version of the autobiography, first published in 1881, describes Douglass's life and work after the Civil War and his encounters with Presidents Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield. With an appendix printing two speeches.....
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![Item No: #362496 [New York Republican Electoral College Slate for 1872]....](https://downtownbrown.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/362496.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1674764871)
A remarkably rare 1872 printed ticket listing New York's Republican Electoral College slate, prominently featuring Frederick Douglass at its head, probably the first time an African American voted as a presidential elector, underscoring the critical role of the Black vote in a pivotal election year. On November 5, 1872, 440,738.....
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First Thus. A rather curious Spanish-language imprint from Massachusetts, and not the more typical Philadelphia and New York. This is a translation of the diplomat Alexander Hill Everett's 1827 book, America: Or, a General Survey of the Political Situation of the Several Powers of the Western Continent, with Conjectures on.....
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First Edition. "A landmark speech on colonialism and rights of Africans" (Marcus Garvey and the United Negro Improvement Association Papers project). Garvey, who had been deported from the United States on December 2, 1927, was attempting to present a petition about African civil rights to a gathering of the League.....
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First Edition. A scarce transcript of a speech given by the Black Jamaican radical Marcus Garvey to a white English audience after his deportation from the United States, where he had been living and agitating since 1916, the previous December. Garvey challenges his British audience: "I am here representing 400,000,000.....
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First Edition. The first biography of Frederick Douglass written by an African American author. Gregory was a friend and supporter of Douglass and a professor of Latin at Howard University. In this biography, emphasizing on Douglass's public persona, Gregory simultaneously places Douglass in the mainstream of American history and in.....
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First Edition. Heine's first book, a collection of poems published by a Berlin bookstore in December 1821 (but dated on the title page 1822). A scarce book by one of the most important 19th century German poets. viii, 170, [1] pages. Collating as: [i] title, [ii] blank, [iii-iv] Zueignung, [v-viii].....
Price: $6,500
First Edition. A collection of 26 orations delivered by a black Baptist minister from the 1880s to the early 20th century. One of Johnson's recurring themes is that while white people and institutions must reform their racist positions, African Americans must also follow God's path more closely. "The clergy of.....
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![Item No: #362513 [Lt. Shirase's Explorations] Shirase chui tankenki. Yoshimasa...](https://downtownbrown.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/362513.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1674764262)
First Edition. Technically the second edition of Shirase Nobu's biography (1861–1946), including an account of the Chishima Islands expedition in the Arctic, as well as of the first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, which Shirase led from 1910 to 1912. The first edition of this book was reproduced from typescript in 1940.....
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First Edition. The previously unrecorded first printing of King's Nobel lecture, possibly printed with the intention of securing copyright in the United States or for distribution to the press ahead of King's speech. However, this copy, from the files of the civil rights leader's literary agent, has a handwritten notation.....
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The editor of the Nation responds to a reader who suggested articles on I. F. Stone and on the Sobel case (Morton Sobel was a Soviet spy during the Second World War; he was released from prison in 1969, two years after these letters were written). Both notes are on.....
Price: $150
"An alphabetically arranged manual and descriptive index of the places, buildings, institutions, parks, streets, resorts, churches, amusements, societies, commercial enterprises, the city and county in general." With a folding street map of the city by Henry Rueger, dated November 1902. This is one of several editions of this guidebook that.....
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First Edition. "A pioneer in the study of Native American art, [O'Neale] presented the art from the weaver's point of view." This book "remains one of the finest and most comprehensive books devoted to American Indian basketry. In contrast to the typical treatment of tribal arts in her day, which.....
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First Thus. A very attractive re-issue of Olsen's first book, originally published by Lippincott in 1961, a collection of four stories. All four stories were included in Best American Short Stories the year they were first published in literary journals. Olsen is considered an important American writer, despite publishing just.....
Price: $400
First Edition. A collection of speeches by a leading bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the editor of the A.M.E. Church Review, and a tireless campaigner for social justice. "Ransom was torn between two concepts of Christianity: Christianity as an instrument of (possibly bloody) revolution, and Christianity as the.....
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First Edition. A sort of biographical encyclopedia of African American institutions and the men and women involved in running them. The focus is on organizations working to educate and support Black Americans, rather than on successful individuals. Many of the places and people described are illustrated with halftone photographs or.....
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![Item No: #362014 The Volcano Lover: A Romance [Uncorrected Proof]. Susan Sontag](https://downtownbrown.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/362014.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1674764194)
Advance Reading Copy. A historical novel set in Italy. Spine a bit faded, else a fine copy in red printed wrappers. This copy is inscribed by Sontag to Peter Perrone, who is thanked on the copyright page, "for Peter, guardian angel—with all my love and gratitude—Susan."
Price: $250
Revised Edition. Third and best edition, reprinting the 1878 revised edition text with the authorized biography of Still by James P. Boyd, here published for the first time. This is also the first edition of the book published by Still himself, part of a trend among African American writers of.....
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First Edition. A Steadman / Hunter S. Thompson collaboration, inscribed by Thompson. Steadman made this collection of drawings during his peak period of visual commentary on American scenes and cultures. These are both published and previously unpublished works from his Rolling Stone assignments with Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing.....
Price: $650
First Edition. A very scarce Mexican spiritualism book, collecting the transcripts of six communications from the spirit world. The medium was the Mexican psychic Francisco Urgel, who worked with Refugio I. Gonzalez's spiritualist circle, La Luz (the light), in Mexico City in 1878 (though not published until eleven years later).....
Price: $500
