Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth

The Rare Book Sleuth specializes in first editions, signed books and notable rarities across a variety of fields. IG: rarebooksleuth

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

“These are bad times for people who like to sit outside the library at dawn on a rainy morning and get ripped to the tits on crank and powerful music.”

First edition, inscribed by Thompson –

“To Jeanette — thanx for the grapefruit. The fat is in the fire. Good luck — HST / Hunter.”

#RareBooks #huntersthompson #BookCollecting #FirstEdition #counterculture

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

Happy 100th birthday to Allen Ginsberg!

In this copy of Barry Miles’ biography, inscribed to his longtime secretary, Ginsberg left a question:

“What’s real & what’s not, what’s sympathetically accurate?”

Signed and dated May 6, 1992.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

Before Darwin, there was Paley.

Published in 1802, William Paley's Natural Theology contains the famous "watchmaker" argument: if a watch implies a watchmaker, does the complexity of life imply a designer?

One of the most influential books of the 19th century, here as the first edition. Rare in the trade.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

https://t.co/YBmuqhV4xy

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

You'll float, too. 🎈

A first edition, first printing of Stephen King's IT (1986) — the sprawling horror epic that introduced readers to Pennywise and remains one of King's most ambitious and enduring novels. Winner of the British Fantasy Award and the basis for both the classic miniseries and blockbuster film adaptations.

1,138 pages of pure nightmare fuel.

Link below👇

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

@areyouroyalty Yes! 🦍

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

Before there was the film, there was the book.

1932 first edition of King Kong by Delos W. Lovelace — the first appearance of Kong in book form, issued before the movie’s release. Complete with its exceedingly scarce original dust jacket, a survival rate that borders on miraculous. One of the most iconic jackets in all of 20th-century collecting. 🦍📚

#RareBooks #KingKong #BookCollecting #FirstEdition #DustJacket

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~The Crystal World, J.G. Ballard~

First edition, first printing of Ballard’s classic fourth novel, the story of a physician who travels up a river in West Africa to find his former mistress, only to discover the jungle is undergoing a mysterious, expanding crystallization, turning everything—plants, animals, and people—into beautiful but lifeless crystal.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Love & Napalm, J.G. Ballard~

First American edition, first printing of Ballard's experimental novel, originally published in the UK as The Atrocity Exhibition. Signed by Ballard to the title page. After a 1970 edition by Doubleday had already been printed, Nelson Doubleday Jr. personally cancelled the publication and had the copies destroyed, fearing legal action from some of the celebrities depicted in the book. Thus, the first US edition was published in 1972 by Grove Press under the title Love and Napalm: Export USA with a new preface by William S. Burroughs.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~You Can’t Win, Jack Black~

First edition, first printing of this important autobiography by professional burglar and hobo, Jack Black, in the scarce original dust jacket. The book, which describes his days on the road and life as an outlaw, was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. You Can’t Win would prove influential to the Beats and in particular William S. Burroughs, who would later write the forward to the 1988 reprint.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

@AlanLevinovitz I think so! Been a couple decades for me too, but it's a good one

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Hyperion, Dan Simmons~

First edition, first printing of Simmons' science fiction classic, winner of the Hugo Award for best novel. Signed by Simmons on a laid in publisher's leaf.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Nova Express, William S. Burroughs~

First edition, first printing of Burroughs' surreal science fiction novel, written using the 'fold-in' method, a version of the cut-up method, developed by Burroughs with Brion Gysin, of enfolding snippets of different texts into the novel. Nova Express is the third novel in The Nova Trilogy, which Burroughs considered a "sequel" or "mathematical" continuation of Naked Lunch.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Donovan's Brain, Curt Siodmak~

First edition, first printing of this science fiction cult classic wherein the disembodied brain of a ruthless millionaire takes telepathic control over the scientist keeping it alive in a fish tank. Basis for numerous film, television and radio adaptations.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Wicked, Gregory Maguire~

First edition, first printing, signed and inscribed by Maguire to the half-title. Maguire’s first novel in The Wicked Years series, Wicked would be loosely adapted into the 2003 Tony Award winning Broadway musical, which was in turn adapted into a two-part feature film.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

The Marijuana Review
Vol. 1, No. 3 (June-August, 1969)

Scarce third issue of the first American periodical devoted to cannabis, produced by LeMar International, an early marijuana advocacy group founded by Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders and Ginsberg's assistant, Michael Aldrich. Edited by Ed Sanders and Mike Aldrich, with "Consultant Gurus" including Allen Ginsberg, Leslie Fiedler, Joseph Oteri (Boston's "Pot Lawyer" at the time) and many others.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

📚 May New Arrivals! 📚

👉https://t.co/O55k6uQPrI

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells~

First edition of Wells' landmark science fiction novel, one of the first to to detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. Currey's state (A) with 16 pages of publisher's advertisements at end dated Autumn 1897, headed by New Letters of Napoleon I on the second page.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Flatland, Edwin Abbott~

Third edition of Abbott's satirical novella and an early example of experimental science fiction. The book uses the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to satirise the class and gender hierarchies of Victorian society, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions. The first two editions of Flatland were published in rapid succession in 1884, after which the work went out of print. Blackwell brought it back with this third edition in 1926, forty-two years later. Although the text includes a small number of revisions from the second edition, the book’s physical presentation is nearly identical to the earlier editions.

[Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth @theliteration]

~Ulysses, James Joyce~

Eighth printing of Joyce's masterpiece and "the most prominent landmark in modernist literature." For this printing, the type was entirely reset and the 'Additional corrections' were, mostly, incorporated in the text. In the original "Greek flag blue" wraps.