London: Chapman & Hall; Bradbury and Evans; 1843-1848. Hardcover first edition - Complete set of Dicken's five Christmas books, all are small octavos ((6 1/2 x 4 inches or 165 x 105 mm), bound in ribbed cloth with covers decoratively blind stamped in blind, and the front covers and spines also stamped and lettered in gilt, all edges gilt. A Christmas Carol is bound in cinnamon cloth, the other four titles are all bound in a deep red cloth. All housed in a decorative red binocular style clamshell case. 1. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. With Illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. First edition with the following first issue points - title page dated 1843, "Stave I" on first page of text, blue half-title and red and blue lettering on title page, original green-coated endpapers. 166 pp plus 2 pp. Colored frontispiece and three hand-colored plates (opposite p 25, 78 and 150) plus four wood engravings. two pages of publisher's advertisements. Bound in the original cinnamon cloth.With previous owner's name dated 1871 on front paste down and a bookplate. Front cover detached but present, rear hinge beginning to separate. 2. THE CHIMES:A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In. London: Chapman and Hall, 1845 . First edition. 175 pp plus colophon. Additional engraved title and frontispiece after Daniel Maclise, by F.P. Becker. Eleven in-text illustrations by Doyle, Leech, and Stanfield, engraved by Linton and Gray. Preceded by publisher's advertisement for the 10th edition of the Christmas Carol. Cream endpapers. Two bookplates on front pastedown. Corners slightly bumped, some wear to spine, but overall very good. Some discoloration to the spine and a bit of fraying to the bottom edge, corners slightly bumped, rear hinge starting but overall very good. 3. THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. A Fairy Tale of Home. London: Printed and Published for the Author, by Bradbury and Evans, 1846 (December 1845). First edition. 174 pp plus 2 publisher's advertisements ( including for the new edition of Oliver Twist.). Engraved title and frontispiece after Daniel Maclise, by Thompson and G. Dalziel. Twelve in-text black and white engraving most by John Leech. Bookplate on front pastedown, gift inscription on front free endpaper, a few black spots to back cover, corners slightly bumped but overall very good. 4. THE BATTLE OF LIFE. A Love Story. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1846. First edition 175 pp plus colophon and 2 pp publisher's advertisements including for Dombey and Son. and Oliver Twist. With Eckel's fourth state engraved title and frontispiece after Maclise by Thompson. Eleven in-text black and white illustrations after Maclise, Doyle, Stanfield and Leech. All edges gilt. Corners bumped, some wear to the spine but overall very good. 5. THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN. A Fancy for Christmas-Time. London: Bradbury & Evans, 1848. First edition with broken numeral on p 166. 2 pp of publisher's advertisements for Works by Mr. Dickens bound at the front. Additional pictorial frontispiece and title by Tenniel and engraved by Martin & Corbould. Fifteen in-text black and white illustrations after Leech, Stone, Stanfield and Tenniel. All edges gilt. 188 pp. Two bookplates on front pastedown. Some wear to the spine, bumping to top edge and corners, but overall very good.

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1939. dj. Hardcover - The third novel by this important Harlem Renaissance writer, considered the first 'modern' African American woman novelist, editor of 'The Crisis.' Introduction by Zona Gale and a foreword by Jessie Fauset in which she comments that this the story of dark Americans who wear their joy and rue very much as the white American. Set in a small town in New Jersey, the chinaberry tree of the title is a symbol of a welcoming and shelftering home, but underneath are issues of racial identity, adultery and incest. In a 1932 interview she is quoted as saying "Here is an audience waiting to hear the
truth about us. Let us who are better qualified to present that truth than
any white writer, try to do so.Ó Later in her career, Fauset was dismissed as too conservative, part of the 'old guard' but this underestimates her crucial role in the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes called her one of the "three people who midwifed the so-called New Negro Literature into being." Although this novel was very popular,as evidenced by 7 printings in just 8 years, as well as a UK edition, early copies of any printing by the original publisher have become increasingly hard to find and especially so in dustjacket. 341 pp.

Scarsdale NY: Bradbury Press, (1978) dj. SIGNED (by dedicatee) hardcover first edition - A beautiful and unique copy of this Caldecott winning book by this author and artist, who was known for his children's books which chronicled the stories of Great Plains groups, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Crow peoples. Although born and raised in England, Goble commented that "From early childhood, I always wanted to know more, and to see the country and wildlife with which the lives and beliefs of Native Americans were so closely interwoven." After several summers spent in the US, n 1977 Goble came to live in the Black Hills of South Dakota and spent the rest of his life there. Shortly after moving to the United States, this book won the Caldecott Medal in 1979 as the year's best-illustrated book for children. In 1991, the American Indian LIbrary Association recommended all of his books, commenting that he "flawlessly captures the flavor of Indian humor and the easy blend of cultures so common in contemporary Indian America, and so lacking in the works of other authors." This copy is INSCRIBED on the dedication page by one of the two dedicatees - "for Bonnie, who loves horses." (The other dedicatee was Janet, who later became his wife - and Bonnie's name was removed from later printings of this title)

New York: St Martin's, (2024). First edition - In 1965 the world is changing, and Frankie McGrath, a sheltered San Diego debutante, impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps when her brother is shipped out to serve in Vietnam. "As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed and politically divided America. It is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on the story of all women who put themselves in harms way to help others - the military nurses who worked under fire, on bases and in field hospitals, to patch soldiers back together. Women whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has all too often been forgotten." This novel became an instant bestseller upon its release in February 2024, and has remained on the list for just about all of 2024, with over 2 million copies sold - but the advance reading copy appears to be very scarce, as is the promotional tote bag. 471 pp.

New York: International Publishers, Inc. (1948) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The son of slaves, Haywood became a leading member of the Communist Party USA and a pioneering theoretician on the Afro-American struggle, who wrote first-hand accounts of the Chicago race riot of 1919, the Scottsboro Boys' defense, the Spanish Civil War and more. This book has been described as the first comprehensive volume on the Negro question in the US by a leading Negro Marxist, one in which he argued the root of the oppression of Blacks was the unsolved agrarian question in the South - that the betrayal of Reconstruction by Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877 and the rise of white supremacy and Jim Crow laws left Blacks frozen as "landless, semi-slaves in the South." INSCRIBED by Haywood on the front endpaper and dated in the year of publication. Map frontispiece Reference notes, appendix, index. 245 pp.

Boulder, CO : Westview Press, (2000) dj. SIGNED hardcover - Jackson was a civil rights and communist activist, a social worker and co-founder (along with Louis Burnham, Jack O'Dell from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and writer Lorraine Hansberry) and the managing editor of Freedomways for its entire history from 1961 to 1986. This quarterly magazine "chronicled the struggle for racial justice in the U.S. It featured contributions by many of the luminaries of black literature, art, and politics, including three Nobel Prize laureates: Martin Luther King Jr., Pablo Neruda, and Derek Walcott. Other contributors included Alice Walker, James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Jomo Kenyatta, C. L. R. James, and common black folk. The collection features poetry, essays, speeches, articles. There are memoirs of a Birmingham coal miner, tributes to Paul Robeson, and reflections of black feminists, labor organizers, and prisoners. The anthology begins with articles actually written in the 1940s and 1950s, which provide historical context for the journal itself, followed by the pieces, organized topically, e.g., the Southern movement, international solidarity, the movement in the North, and art and activism. This comprehensive collection reflects the global nature of the struggle for equality and the longing for racial justice over an important 25-year period." (Booklist/Vanessa Bush). INSCRIBED by Esther Cooper Jackson on the front endpaper, and dated June 9, 2000, and scarce thus. Foreword by Julian Bond and as afterword by David Levering Lewis. A title in the Interventions: Theory and Contemporary Politics series. Illustrated with photographs. xxx, 382 pp. ISBN: 0-813367697.

New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925. Hardcover first edition - In an article entitled "Enter the New Negro" published in Survey Graphic in 1925, and reprinted here, Locke laid out his vision - "The migrant masses, shifting from countryside to city, hurdle several generations of experience at a leap, but more important, the same thing happens spiritually in the life-attitudes and self-expression of the Young Negro, in his poetry, his art, his education and his new outlook, with the additional advantage, of course, of the poise and greater certainty of knowing what it is all about. From this comes the promise and warrant of a new leadership." This anthology - which effectively introduced what we now know as the Harlem Renaissance to the outside world - was a concrete and vivid demonstration of the breadth of the achievements - in art, poetry, fiction and more - of the 'Young Negro.' It includes articles, essays, poetry, and fiction by both established figures, and most notably young writers at the beginning of their careers from Locke himself to Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jessie Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Eric Walrond, Anne Spenser. Bruce Nugent, William Stanley Braithwaite, Angelina Grimke, W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White, and many others. Includes an extensive bibliography with notes on the contributors and sections on important early books, drama, Black music, folk lore and racial problems. A handsome volume illustrated with 17 full-page portraits and sketches by Winold Reiss, printed on glossy stock and most in full-color, who was also responsible for the cover design, decorative endpapers and other decorations, and with six drawings and decorative designs by Aaron Douglas, as well as two illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias, reproductions of title pages from the Schomberg collection and photographs of African masks. xvii, 446 pp. Illustrated endpapers.

New York: Lothrup, Lee & Shepherd, (1980) dj. SIGNED hardcover - The story of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and its aftermath told from the viewpoint of a seven-year old girl who fled their burning home with her mother and injured father. INSCRIBED and dated in 1988 by the author/artist on the front endpaper with her signature drawing of a peace dove with a mother and child nestled in the belly. Since the end of World War II, the author and her husband have campaigned for nuclear disarmament and world peace. In her comments at the end of the book, Maruki commented how difficult it was to create this book - "to tell young people about something very bad that happened in the hope that their knowing will help keep it from happening again." Awarded the annual Ehon Nippon Prize as the best illustrated book of Japan, the Jane Adams Peace award, a Horn Book Honor award and more. Large square format,unpaginated, illustrated in full color throughout. ISBN: 0-688012973.

Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, (1923). Hardcover first edition - The scarce first edition of this autobiography of a business man, author, and popular public speaker who achieved recognition in the 1920s when he determined to run his newly purchased sweatshop on the basis of the Golden Rule, only to find that his business prospered far beyond his expectations. Although he left the Adventist religion in which he was raised in the mid-1890s, and spent the next 4 or 5 years as a hobo and casual laborer, he did not abandon Christianity - but he soon found he was a better salesman than a minister. By 1913, he had a dozen clothing salesmen in his employ. In 1919, shortly after the end of the Great War, he was offered the chance to buy the small factory that produced many of the men's clothes he sold - only to discover that he was now the owner of a sweatshop. Despite expecting the increased costs to cause the business to fail, his first action was to double and triple the wages of the workers - and the business grew at an unprecedented rate as his newly empowered employees rewarded the trust he had placed in them. Not only did he increase pay, he reduced the work week, shared stock dividends with his employees and more - and within 3 years, it was a multi-million dollar business. The final chapter of this book, "Something Attempted, Something Done", was the transcript of a speech he delivered to the student body of Harvard Business School just before his manuscript was due at the publishers, and in that chapter he wrote "I believe any system of economics or sociology or business teaching to be unsound that does not start on this fundamental basis: that the men and women connected with it are the important, the vital, asset of that business, and that their development ... is the important and the fundamental thing on which to build any institution." We can only hope that more business owners will read - and act on - the principles explained in this book. 160 pp.