First Editions
Texas Christian University Press, 1979. 5 volumes: Volume I - The Christmas Stories; Volume II - Editors and Writers; Volume III - Tourists and Colonials; Volume IV - Courtship and Marriage; Volume V - Various Stories. Dust jackets in protective covers; volume IV spine slightly faded; black cloth spines over brown cloth; bindings tight; text clean. VG/VG
Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1989. Signed limited edition, no. 373/500. Tan cloth slipcase; dust jacket protected; brown cloth; binding good; text clean. VG/VG
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the novel that established Mordecai Richler as one of the world’s best comic writers. Growing up in the heart of Montreal’s Jewish ghetto, Duddy Kravitz is obsessed with his grandfather’s saying, “A man without land is nothing.” In his relentless pursuit of property and his drive to become a somebody, he will wheel and deal, he will swindle and forge, he will even try making movies. And in spite of the setbacks he suffers, the sacrifices he must make along the way, Duddy never loses faith that his dream is worth the price he must pay. This blistering satire traces the eventful coming-of-age of a cynical dreamer. Amoral, inventive, ruthless, and scheming, Duddy Kravitz is one of the most magnetic anti-heroes in literature, a man who learns the hard way that dreams are never exactly what they seem, even when they do come true.
Little, Brown and Company; An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, 1959. 1st edition. Dust jacket in protective cover; pencil notes on front cover; closed vertical tear from bottom of front cover; spine toned; black cloth with silver lettering on spine; binding tight; some ink underlining and notes in text. Dust jacket art by Leonard Baskin. G/G
1st edition; inscribed by author on ffep; dust jacket protected; front of dj creased; binding tight; text clean. VG/G
William Riley (W.R.) Burnett (1899-1982) was an American novelist and screenwriter, best known for his crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which was considered to be the first of the classic American gangster movies. Burnett's characters exist in a world of twilight morality — virtue can come from gangsters and criminals, malice from guardians and protectors. Above all his characters are human and this could be their undoing. In The Asphalt Jungle, published in 1949 and made into a movie in 1950, the most perfectly masterminded plot falls apart as each character reveals a weakness.
1st UK edition, published by Macdonald & Company, London, 1950; dust jacket in protective mylar cover; top edge shelf-worn; black cloth with gilt lettering on spine; endpapers very lightly tanned; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
Offering a unique perspective and unusual insight into modern Japan and its wartime past, Audrey Hepburn's Neck is also a shrewd study of cross-cultural obsessions, and of erotic, romantic and familial love.
The American author Alan Brown crosses both racial and cultural lines to tell his story through the eyes of a young, handsome Japanese cartoonist, Toshiyuki ("Toshi") Okamoto, who traces his strong attraction to Western women bock to his ninth birthday, when his mother took him to see Audrey Hepburn in the movie "Roman Holiday."
Leaving behind a sad, silent childhood -- which was spent living in two rooms above the family noodle shop on an isolated peninsula in the far north of Japan -- Toshi moves to Tokyo to pursue his career. There he falls under the spell of three Americans: his best friend and confidante, the generous and extroverted Paul, a gay advertising copywriter who has plenty of his romantic mishaps with Japanese men; Jane, his glamorous but emotionally unstable teacher at the Very Romantic English Academy, with whom Toshi has a hazardous sexual affair; and, finally, the lovely and talented composer, Lucy, with whom Toshi falls in love.
The novel deftly moves back and forth between present and past, as Toshi explores his unhappy childhood, the reasons behind his mother's unexplained abandonment when he was eight years old, and her move to a seaside inn across the peninsula. As the novel draws to a close, tragic events, both public and personal, bring past and present together, revealing the painful truth of Toshi's parents' lives during World War II, and a secret in Toshi's own past that, in the end, gives him the strength and knowledge to confront the future.
1st edition, signed by author. Fine/Fine
Macmillan, 1955. 1st edition thus; dust jacket protected; spine toned; green cloth; endpapers and text lightly toned; binding good. G/G
NY: Rinehart & Co. Inc., 1951. 1st edition; dust jacket protected; edges worn; large vertical crease on both front and rear covers; loss to head of spine; unclipped - original $3.00 price on flap; stain on rear flap and rear free endpaper; black cloth; corners bumped; binding good; text clean. G/G-
A botched liquor store heist leaves three grisly dead. A hero cop is missing. Nobody could see a pattern in these two stray bits of information–no one except Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, a brilliant and disturbed L.A. cop with an obsessive desire to protect the innocent. To him they lead to one horrifying conclusion--a killer is on the loose and preying on his city. From the master of L.A. noir comes this beautiful and brutal tale of a cop and a criminal squared off in a life and death struggle.
1st edition; published by The Mysterious Press, New York, 1984; "A Lloyd Hopkins Novel of Suspense." Dust jacket in protective mylar cover; light shelf wear; corners chipped; dark green cloth with silver lettering on spine; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG