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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 2013: 50 Select Items

Our new catalog--SPRING MISCELLANY 2013--contains 50 select items, all new arrivals. Highlights include exceptional presidential material including an inscribed Theodore Roosevelt ROUGH RIDERS as well as a book inscribed by Roosevelt to Jacob Riis, whom he called the best American; two copies of the very limited (25 copies) edition of Eisenhower's CRUSADE IN EUROPE each inscribed by Ike to a brother; a John Quincy Adams Signed book; George Washington's Secretary's copy of Thomas Jefferson's NOTES ON VIRGINIA; and others. Also there are excellent hand-colored plate books including Downing's scarce 1847 edition on American Fruits and some nice early printed titles including the heavily illustrated 17th century Jonston HISTORIAE NATURALIS. Literary titles include a Signed First Edition of Flannery O'Connor's A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND and the First American Edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

SPRING MISCELLANY 2013: 50 Select Items (click to download)

Featured Items

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

Quarto 7-1/2" x 10-1/2") bound in full black leather with patterned endpapers and contained in a black morocco-backed drop-back box with the sides covered by the same patterned paper. Of a total edition of 430 copies, this is one of only 50 lettered copies of this magnificent production with each of the 121 wood engravings, each by a different artist, printed from the block. SIGNED by the publishers, Crispin and Jan Elsted, on a page bound before the colophon page, this smaller limitation also includes a numbered and SIGNED tipped-in frontispiece engraving by Rosemary Kilbourn. The 121 contemporary Canadian and American artists represented include the little known as well as giants such as Leonard Baskin, John DePol, Michael McCurdy, and Barry Moser. A beautiful book and a great reference work.

ENDGRAIN: CONTEMPORARY WOOD ENGRAVING IN NORTH AMERICA
AINSLE, Patricia & RITSCHER, Paul
(Mission, British Columbia): Barbarian Press, 1994. Quarto 7-1/2" x 10-1/2") bound in full black leather with patterned endpapers and contained in a black morocco-backed drop-back box.. more
Price: $3,500.00

Bound in decorated leather and illustrated with a frontispiece. Limited edition preceding the trade edition with a special message by the author not in the trade edition and SIGNED by him as well.

RECESSIONAL
MICHENER, James
Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1994. Bound in decorated leather and illustrated with a frontispiece. Limited edition preceding the trade edition with a special message by.. more
Price: $90.00

The true First Printing of this modern classic. Copy #482 of 750 numbered copies printed on handmade paper of a total edition of only 1000. Bound without the original blue paper covers in half brown morocco with matching corners, spine lettered in gilt, with a matching half morocco slipcase. A very nice copy priced very attractively because the half title and title pages are in expert facsimile. There is also a facsimile corner repair to one page. The initial and rear blanks as well as the colophon leaf at the end are lacking; the limitation leaf at the beginning is original. In order to bring the book into an English-speaking country before 1934, a number of people evidently tore off the wraps and title pages to smuggle it in through customs. If you can live with this, you will have on your shelf perhaps the most notable work of fiction written in the twentieth century at a price you are not likely to encounter elsewhere.

ULYSSES
JOYCE, James
Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922. The true First Printing of this modern classic. Copy #482 of 750 numbered copies printed on handmade paper of a.. more
Price: $9,500.00

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