New York: Knopf and others, 1983. SIGNED hardcover first edition - FOR SALE, AS A LOT ONLY: a unique group of items with a significant association to Clampitt's life. Included are four of her hardcover books published by Knopf - The Kingfisher, What the Light Was Like, Archaic Figure and The Silence Opens. Kingfisher is a 2nd printing (before publication), the rest are first printings; none have dust jackets (possibly as sent by the publisher or possibly removed by the recipient.) Tipped onto the front endpaper of 'The Kingfisher' is a small handwritten note "For Harold Guthrie - who opened the excitements of English poetry for me so many years ago, and whose friendship I treasure - with thanks and best wishes always." SIGNED by Clampitt in full and dated in December 1982. 'Archaic Figure' and 'What the Light Was Like' have tipped-in printed cards from the publisher stating "with the compliments of the author" (one of those cards has "Harold Guthrie "handwritten on it); 'The Silence Opens' has a similar card, loosely laid in.
Also included is a brief typed signed note dated in December 1983, referring both to seeing Guthrie recently and to the limited edition broadside of "Hippocrene" which she was sending as a Christmas greeting. The note also states that she is enclosing a poem "that comes out of my brief visit to Scotland." The photocopied typed poem "Dundee: A Homage" fills one side of an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet (folded in four for mailing). Hippocrene is on a single sheet 17" by 11" folded to make 4 page broadside, printed in an edition of 220 copies on the occasion of the poet reading at Bennington College in November 17, 1983. It has an additional fold line across the middle (probably to fit in a smaller envelope for mailing) - As far as we have been able to determine, "Dundee" has not been published in book form, at least -
The final item is a copy of "Matoaka: A Poem in Celebration of the Tercentary of the College of William and Mary College in Virginia" in 1993. This is INSCRIBED by Clampitt to Guthrie 'with longtime and continuing esteem' and dated in February, 1993. While Clampitt started writing poetry seriously in the 1970's, and had been published in magazines, including the New Yorker, as well as publishing the chapbook 'Multitudes, Multitudes,' it was the appearance of her first collection with Knopf - The Kingfisher - in 1983, when she was already in her 60's, that brought her acclaim. This lot covers the entire span of Clampitt's most productive last years before her death - and they are evidence on an on-going and warm relationship with the teacher from her hometown of New Providence, Iowa, the teacher whom she honored publicly in 1984 when she wrote (at the end of 'A Homage to John Keats'): "I
wish to . . . pay tribute to Harold Guthrie, in whose class at New Providence, Iowa, I had my introduction to the poetry of Keats." The two very uncommon published items, as well as the short notes and the poem "Dundee", make this lot interesting in itself, but the real value lies in the spirit behind these gifts and notes to Guthrie - her teacher more than 40 years before.

London: Head of Zeus, (2015) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - English language edition of this bestselling Chinese science fiction novel, winner in translation of the 2015 Hugo Award and very highly praised. To cite just a couple of examples, Kim Stanley Robinson stated: "It is wonderful to read this state-of-the-art example of Chinese science fiction, which sweeps from the historical trauma of the Cultural Revolution to the cosmic trauma of alien contact with an immense narrative energy. Ken Liu's excellent translation combines fluid clarity with a continuous view into Chinese worldviews, adding to the fun and making this the best kind of science fiction, familiar but strange all at the same time." and Mike Resnick said "The Three-Body Problem deserves all of its plaudits. It's an exceptional novel, and Ken Liu's translation is both smooth and unintrusive." SIGNED on the title page. Translator's postscript. 399 pp. ISBN: 978-1784971557.

New York: HarperCollins, (1999.). SIGNED first edition - An extremely uncommon ARC of the first two titles in the "Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket - THE BAD BEGINNING and THE REPTILE ROOM, bound dos-a-dos, (back to back) in glossy illustrated wrappers. SIGNED (sort of) by the author, with an embossed seal and the trademark handwritten comment 'with all due respect' surrounding the seal, and the date '3.X.2004. written inside the seal. First issue, with the misspelling of 'unfortuante' on the covers. Now that this was the basis of a movie starring Jim Carey, Meryl Streep and Jude Law, even those of you who don't have children in your lives are probably familiar with these books, but for those who might still be languishing uninformed, here is a bit of information: The Lemony Snicket books are possibly even more popular than the Potter books - and for good reason! The resemblance to Edward Gorey's works is not accidental - How could anyone not love a book which contains this 'letter to the reader' at the beginning: 'I am sorry to say that the book which you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells the unhappy tale of three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book, when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune./ In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune and cold porridge for breakfast. / It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.' What adult would not enjoy the in-jokes of names like Sunny and Klaus (as in von Bulow) - or the fact that these books actually encourage children to learn from reading, as in this excerpt: 'But although Klaus had read books on outer-space exploration, ice-skating tricks, and good marriage methods, and not yet found much use for this information, he had learned a great deal of information that was about to become very useful indeed.' Or a beginning paragraph that includes a word like 'rife'? The vocabulary is wonderful in these books. As a well-publicized debut, this advance reading copy was presumably printed in relatively generous numbers - but very few are currently being offered for sale! Either all the booksellers who got copies of this are hoarding this treasure themselves or, horrors, actually GAVE them to children! However, not only are we willing to sell this ARC, we will even include the much more elusive ' Magnets for Misfortune' which was produced as part of this original publicity campaign (I have never seen any of these offered for sale). This is the first of the promotional magnet sets done by the publisher: it consists of a small sheet of words (5 3/4 by 4 inches, designed to be cut apart and use to create 'refrigerator poetry'' Still in the original sealed plastic bag with a slip announcing a poetry contest for children.

Philadelphia: Penn Publishing Company, (1936). Hardcover first edition - One of the most difficult to find of the novels written by Wirt (the original author of the Nancy Drew series) under her own name. While Wirt mentioned reading mysteries by Augusta Hueill Seaman as a girl, this is probably the closest she came to actually using the themes and patterns found in Seaman's novels: a young girl from the North is visiting a friend at an old plantation in the South and together they make a discovery that leads to solving a mystery from the past. She even uses the typical Seaman plot device of a brother, who is at first someone to keep the secret from, but later proves to be very helpful. Glossy frontispiece. 224 pp.