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CHARLES AGVENT has been buying and selling rare books, manuscripts, and autographs in a variety of fields since 1987. We have books from the 15th to the 21st century and feature a stock strong in Signed Books & Autographs, Literary First Editions, Presidential material, African-American Literature & History, and Fine Press & Illustrated Books. In addition, we carry the largest inventory of Limited Edition Club books and ephemera in the world. We are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers and adhere to their high ethical standards.

Please search or browse our inventory of approximately 6000 items. Use the links to the left to browse our many specific categories and to see descriptions of new arrivals. If you can't find what you want, let us know and we'll be happy to search our extensive private inventory for you.

You can also click on the Catalogs link to see our pdf catalogs, including our latest catalog:

SPRING MISCELLANY 2012: 70 Select Items

Our new catalog--SPRING MISCELLANY 2012--contains 70 select items, all new arrivals. Highlights include a SIGNED copy of AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Katherine Lee Bates; Superb letters by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Fenimore Cooper, and Woody Guthrie; First Edition of Cooper's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, 1826; Two early F. Scott Fitzgerald First Editions in dustwrappers; SIGNED First Edition of Woody Guthrie's BOUND FOR GLORY; Several SIGNED books from the library of Henry James; Robert Kennedy's THE ENEMY WITHIN with a fine INSCRIPTION to Barry Goldwater; Several INSCRIBED First Editions by Eugene O'Neill; and SIGNED Books, Letters, & Photographs by Robert Browning, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rutherford Hayes, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, & others.

SPRING MISCELLANY 2012: 70 Select Items (click to download)

Featured Items

Wilson's first volume of poetry, here INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "To Marion and John Ame/This little sheaf of woodland/pipings from a wayward muse,/From Edmund Wilson/October 44." The beginning of Wilson's longtime friendship with John Amen, who would eventually become his tax lawyer and executor, dates to 1919. Wilson married his second wife, Margaret Canby, in Washington, DC at the home of Amen, then Assistant Attorney General of the United States. That marriage, of course, would end tragically with Margaret's death two years later after falling down stairs. Amen was the second husband of Marion Cleveland Dell, the daughter of former President Grover Cleveland. A scarce book to find signed, let alone with such a fine association.

POETS, FAREWELL!
WILSON, Edmund
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. Wilson's first volume of poetry, here INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "To Marion and John.. more
Price: $2,000.00

Printed wraps; 4 pages, the last blank. SIGNED on the top margin of the front page "With Compliments/R. B. Hayes" by the President. Prints Hayes's speech celebrating the election of James Garfield to succeed him as President. "You all remember how four years ago the business of the country for weeks and months was interrupted and almost suspended by the doubts in regard to the result of the election. Possibly the weakest point in our system is that our Constitution does not adequately provide for the ascertainment and determination of the result of a Presidential election when it is close and doubtful and disputed...." Don't we know it.

REMARKS OF PRESIDENT HAYES, AT THE CELEBRATION OF GENERAL GARFIELD'S ELECTION, CLEVELAND, OHIO, NOVEMBER 4, 1880
HAYES, Rutherford B
n.p.: [1880]. Printed wraps; 4 pages, the last blank. SIGNED on the top margin of the front page "With Compliments/R. B. Hayes".. more
Price: $3,000.00

Original cinnamon cloth. Copy #392 of only 492 numbered copies SIGNED by the author of this important and desirable title.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN
WOOLF, Virginia
New York/London: The Fountain Press/The Hogarth Press, 1929. Original cinnamon cloth. Copy #392 of only 492 numbered copies SIGNED by the author of this important and desirable title... more
Price: $7,500.00

STUART LITTLE
WHITE, E. B
New York: Harper & Bros., (1945). Pictorial cloth. Illustrated by Garth Williams. White's first children's book. .. more
Price: $1,000.00

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