Rutland, VT: Carolyn Shattuck, 2021. Hardcover. One of 10 copies. This inventive work by Carolyn Shattuck joins previous artist's books she has produced to call attention to endangered animal species such as elephants and rhinos. The little known mammal in this work is the pangolin. She states that it is one of the world's most trafficked mammals, prized for its scales, which are used primarily for medicinal purposes in China and Vietnam. The book is a complex production that displays Shattuck's skill in using various book structures to convey meaning and context in the books she creates.An accordion style structure reveals a hand-painted pangolin in its painted forested environment. A foldout text lists the many ailments and other purposes that the animal's scales supposedly address. Printed on BFK Rives and painted with water colors. Housed in a black slipcase with title label on front. In addition to creating artists' books, Shattuck is a painter and creator of paper art. She exhibits her work nationally in numerous juried exhibitions and has received many awards. Her books have been collected by a number of special collections libraries at universities throughout the country. She teaches Book Art workshops in New England and Florida. She describes her work as "an expression of living life to the fullest while being aware of its risks." In fine condition. Measures 12 x 8 x 2.5 inches. ARTISTS/010422. Fine. More

Baltimore: Maclay and Associates, 1981. Paperback. Size quarto. Discusses the history and evolution of the Baltimore rowhouse including floorplans, notes on historic styles, and photographs. Orange side-stapled wraps with illustration and white title to front wraper. Light rubbing to wrappers. Interior is clean and bright with illustrations throughout. 39 pages. . BALT/102721. Very Good. More

Chicago: Starshaped Press, 2021. 1 of 40 copies. A new abecedarium from the Starshaped Press that creates each letter using only 12 point metal type and ornament. Each and every sort in the book must have 12 points along at least one side. Includes title page, colophon, 26 letters and a final ampersand. A soft cover book bound with a wraparound cover and screw posts. Letterpress printed on Somerset gray with interior pages of Zerkall soft white. Each letter is printed in two colors. Size: 12 inches square. [58 pages.] ARTB/111621. Fine. More

Philadelphia and Chicago: National Publishing Company and Ziegler, McCurdy & Co., [1868 and 1870]. Hardcover. First editions. Alexander Hamilton Stephens[a] (1812 – 1883) was an American politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives before the Civil War and before becoming governor. The Howes bibliography describes this book as the "most elaborate - and best - argument for the constitutional validity of the doctrine of state sovereignty and the right of succession." Stephens was a supporter of the institution of slavery but initially opposed breaking up the union. Bound in three quarter brown leather with marbled paper boards. Black title and author labels to spines. Leather is scraped, rubbed, and worn as are the paper boards. Evidence of round spine labels and signout forms on rear pastedowns having been removed. Scattered foxing throughout Volume I; Volume II is cleaner and brighter. Offsetting from the engravings in both volumes. A few margin notes in Volume II. Engravings include Liberty Hall, Jefferson, Washington, Andrew Jackson, Stephens, Stephen Douglas, Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Lee, and Grant. A few ink notations on endpapers, bookplate and ownership signature of Dr. W.J. Murrell. Very good minus. Octavos. Volume I: 827 pages plus 4 pages of publisher ads; Volume II: 654 pages plus 3 pages with solicitations for hiring publisher agents. CIVILW/091021. Very Good -. More

Baltimore: The Etchcrafters Art Guild, 1939. Hardcover. Number 69 of 200 copies. The 100 etchings in these two volumes are all artist proofs, individually signed by Don Swann. Inscribed from the artist and author: "Aunt 'Madge' and Uncle 'Ed'. December 25th 1941 with Best Wishes. From Don Sr. & Don Jr." Don Swann Sr. (1889 - 1954) grew up in Baltimore, attending Maryland Institute College of Art, and is known for his etchings of colonial and Neo-classical American architecture. In addition to houses he also did multiple etchings of Baltimore cityscapes. His son Don Swann Jr. (1911 - 1998) followed in his father's footsteps to become a master etcher. He continued to operate the Etchcrafters Art Guild after the death of his father. Both volumes are bound in blue leather over blue leatherette boards with gilt titles to spines. Minor scuffing to both spines and light stain to spine of second volume. Minor foxing to interiors (heaviest on tissue guards) and browning to endpapers. All etchings have the original tissue guards bound in. Bound by the Elliott Bookbinding Company in Baltimore. Printed on Rives, Woven, Imported paper with Old Style Caslon type at the Monumental Printing Company in Baltimore with typography by Norman T.A. Munder. Continously paginated - 425 pages. Size: Folio. MD/122121. Very Good. More

London: Robert Baldwin, 1813. First edition of this interesting travel book by Thomas Thomson written after a several week trip throughout Sweden. It was written in an engaging conversational style that makes it quite readable today. Thomas Thomson FRS FLS FRSE (1773 – 1852) was a Scottish chemist and mineralogist whose writings contributed to the early spread of Dalton's atomic theory. His scientific accomplishments include the invention of the saccharometer] and he gave silicon its current name. He served as president of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow [Wikipedia]. He was also a member of The Geological Society, the Wernerian Society, and the Imperial Chirurgo-Medical Academy of Petersburgh. As a mineralogist, there is an emphasis in the book on the geology of Sweden, but he also writes extensively on all aspects of Swedish society, culture, history, and customs. The book has thirteen plates that include maps of Sweden, Gothland, and Stockholm, portraits of the Crown Prince and the late King Gustavus Adolphus, and others of geological interest. Bound in three quarter brown leather with marbled paper boards. Decorative gilt and title to spine. Leather and boards are scuffed and bumped. Joints are tender. Marbled page edges. Spotting and soiling to endpapers and offsetting to text pages from maps and plates. Otherwise the text is generally clean. Maps of Sweden and Stockholm have spotting and soiling. Ownership signature in ink to first page of text. A nice and sound copy of this rather scarce title. Small quarto. xii; 460 pages including two page publisher advertisements. TRAVEL/072021. More

Paris: G. Masson, Bibliothèque de La Nature, n.d. [circa 1886]. Hardcover. In his preface, the author says that travel to the United States from Paris was now easy and wonders why his fellow citizens don't sail there to see that beautiful country. He notes that the United States does not have monuments of art, or historic sites, but reminds his readers that it is a very young country. The country does display its extraordinary energy and extreme hard work. The traveler will see there the results of their intelligence and see the grand works that they have accomplished. Albert Tissandier (1839 – 1906) was a French architect, aviator, illustrator, editor and archaeologist. He was the brother of adventurer Gaston Tissandier with whom he collaborated in writing the magazine La Nature, a French language scientific journal aimed at the popularization of science. Tissandier was also a passionate writer and traveller. In 1886, he started a long trip around the world in America, subsequently traveling to the East Indies, Ceylon and many other Asian locales, sending his magnificent illustrations back to Paris so they could appear in La Nature [Wikipedia]. This account in French of his travels in the U.S. naturally focuses on what he finds most interesting - engineering achievements such as the Brooklyn Bridge; natural wonders like the canyons of the west and Niagara Falls; and important developments in transportation and manufacturing. His text is accompanied by his wonderful illustrations. There are eight two-page plates, 82 engravings, and two maps. One of the maps shows Tissandier's route across the United States. Bound in half red leather with marbled paper boards. Spine with raised bands, gilt titling and ornaments. Leather is rubbed with wear along edges and paper boards have some chipping and bumping. Interior pages are clean and bright with a bit of foxing to first and last few pages. Very good condition. Measures 6.25 x 10 inches. 298 pages plus page listing plates and maps. TRAVEL/092121. Very Good. More

Rockport, ME: Two Ponds Press, 2017. Hardcover. Number 262 of 300 copies signed by the poet and photographer. This compelling book was created as a collaborative project between Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco and contemporary landscape photographer Jacob Bond Hessler. In it, Blanco's powerful poetry is juxtaposed with Hessler's evocative photographs. From the Prospectus: "Blanco's poems and Hessler's phonographs together investigate the visible and invisible boundaries of race, gender, class, and ethnicity, among many others; they challenge the physical, imagined, and psychological dividing lines - both historic and current - that shadow America and perpetuate an us vs. them mindset by inciting irrational fears, hate, and prejudice. In contrast to the current narrowing definition of an America with very clear-cut boundaries, Blanco and Hessler cross and erase borders. As artists, they tear down barriers to understanding by pushing boundaries and exposing them for what they truly are - fabrications for the sake of manifesting power and oppression pitted against our hopes of indeed becoming a boundary-less nation in a boundary-less world." Bound in black cloth with silver design across the covers and silver title to spine. Printed with Gotham and Baskerville types on Mohawk Superfine Cover, Ultra White, Eggshell paper. Presswork was executed by Puritan Press. Housed in a red cloth slipcase. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Oblong measuring 9.75 x 14 inches. Unpaginated. PRI/112921. Fine. More

Rockport, ME: Two Ponds Press, 2020. Number 29 of 60 copies. Copies number 1 to 20 are the deluxe edition. This beautifully conceived and executed limited edition private press work explores in parallel two critical contemporary issues: the impact of climate change and the status of the increasing number of refugees in our world. Nansen’s Pastport is an artistic re-invention of Norwegian polar explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen’s refugee passport for post-Great War Europe.  The book, designed and conceived by artist Anneli Skaar, is re-imagined as a climate refugee passport for humanity, using Nansen’s own words in a contemporary context, inviting consideration on how to meet the pressing issues of current and future climate migration with wisdom from the past. Skaar writes: "The Pastport's design is based on the United States passport, arguably one of the most recognizable and coveted identity documents in the world. On its pages the U.S. passport features a number of iconic American landscapes and quotations by well-known citizens.... Nansen's Pastport also features landscapes and quotations. The quotations...are taken directly from Nansen's 1922 Nobel Lecture, 'The Suffering People of Europe.' Although Nansen's words reference the issues facing the displaced citizens of post-war Europe, the excerpts feel equally relevant and inspirational even today."  The Pastport is bound from blue North Atlantic salmon leather sourced from Iceland. On its cover is the image of an Arctic tern, the animal the migrates the farthest, making a 50,000 mile trip back and forth from the poles every year. The blue cloth covered box housing the Pastport is constructed to feel like an atlas, its dominant size symbolically enforcing geography's significance to the passport within. On the inside cover of the box is a mounted copperplate etching by Skaar. Named Carta Borealis (Northern Map), it emulates the perspective of an Arctic map; its center is the star of the North Pole. The outer case measures 19 x 13 inches. Nansen’s Pastport is 5 x 3.5 inches, 32 pages, identical to a standard passport. Letterpress printing by Art Larson at Horton Tank Graphics and bound and boxed by Amy Borezo. The Pastports cyanotypes processing by Sal Taylor Kydd and the map was printed from the copper plate by Wingate Studio. Accompanied by a softcover illustrated catalog by Anneli Skaar that describes the book, with an introduction by Steven R. Koltai. In fine condition. PRI/111021. More

Chicago: Ann Tyler, 2018. Hardcover. Number 4 of 5 copies. Signed and numbered by Ann Tyler, the book artist. Ann is a noted book artist and print maker whose works have been exhibited at many galleries across the United States. Her artist’s books are in several permanent collections including the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She says of this powerful and complex work: "Catastrophic Geometries emerged from my research on Syria and the government military violence against the citizens. These books focus on one particular detention and torture site: Hospital 601. Hospital 601 is part of a military complex in Damascus. In news articles, aerial images of the site were published along with descriptions of what occurred at the site; images were smuggled out of Syria and provided to human rights organizations; testimony and documentation were provided by human rights organizations and in turn published in the media. The aerial images of building exteriors and roofs and shadows cast provided the basis of the abstractions I developed for this book. Catastrophic Geometries requires explication, as the sequencing of the text content underpins the viewer’s understanding of/relation to the abstractions – even though the abstractions comprise the bulk of the pages." The texts for each volume discuss visual and psychological factors that affect perception and understanding. For example, in volume IV: Car Garage Addendum: "The greater the distance the less detail. This tells us we are far away. Additionally, the greater the anticipated effort required then the greater the perceived distance. In tests, people within our own group are perceived to be closer while people out of our group are perceived to be further away because of the anticipated effort to understand that culture. Someone is sitting in a chair in the United States looking at a satellite image taken approximately 500 miles above Damascus, Syria reading a description of the site as told by another person who was standing at the scene photographing bodies but who has now fled to London carrying the evidence. The dead are strewn on the concrete floor of a car garage — some are isolated, some are slightly touching one arm on another, some are piled onto each other with no space in between. How do we determine distance in this scene? And what is the effort required?"    This work is a four volume set housed in a custom slipcase. The books are casebound in red and magenta linen cloth and are hand-sewn with gold foil stamped titles and volume numbers on their spines. The graphite notations on one of the last pages of volume IV are individually hand-drawn lines and numbers. Being hand-drawn this page varies slightly with each set.   Type set in Futura and Adobe Garamond and printed on MOAB Entrada Rag Natural paper. In fine condition. Books measure 9 3/8 x 12 1/8 inches. Slipcase is 9.5 x 12.5 x 3.5 inches. Volume I: 90 pages; Volume II: 52 pages; Volume III: 48 pages; Volume IV: 32 pages. ARTISTSB/072921. Fine. More

London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874. Hardcover. Sold as is. Somewhat uncommon. Grey cloth boards with gilt title to spine and front board. Chipping and wear to head of spine and cloth along along front hinge. Wear to corners. Several large splits to textblock with some pages coming disbound. Ex-library from the Redemptorist Library, New Orleans with stamp to title page. Many pages remain unopened. Browning to margins of some pages. Pages are very brittle and some corners have chipped off. Text on a few pages is affected. A good reading copy of this uncommon book. 484 pages. ENG/102021. Good. More

Philadelphia and London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1922. Hardcover. "This is not a history of Delaware and the Eastern Shore, but rather a delightful interpretation of the rare and somewhat elusive charm of a region distinguished for the variety of its quiet landscapes, the rich freshness of its woodlands, and the unique beauty of its waters" (jacket). Includes 50 illustrations. Uncommon in dust jacket. First Edition. Very good in the original grey cloth boards with black title to spine and front board. Black and blue illustration of a ship to front board. Ownership signature in pen to front pastedown. Browning to first and last few pages. Several splits to interior, but textblock remains attached and pages bound. Bump to head of spine and minor fading to edges of rear board. Short closed tear to bottom of front hinge. Clean and bright overall. In grey dust jacket with black title to spine and front panels. Browning to spine panel of jacket and chipping, tears, and wear to edges. 330 pages. STA/102021. Very Good / Very Good. More