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Transition - A Complete Run - Numbers 1-27. -
Eugene Jolas (editor)
1927 to 1938 - Transition Press, Paris - First Editions
A rare complete set of the most influential and important literary magazine between the wars. Edited by Eugene Jolas, contributors are a whose who of writers, poets and artists of this magnificent period, including but not limited to James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Georges Braque, Kay Boyle, Elliot Paul, Man Ray, Robert McAlmon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Picasso, André Breton, William Carlos Williams, Robert Graves, Hart Crane, André Gide, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Malcolm Cowley, Djuna Barnes, Franz Kafka, Harry Crosby, Archibald MacLeish, Samuel Beckett, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, Cartier-Bresson, Dylan Thomas, Louis Aragon, Le Corbusier and Aaron Copland.
Numbers 1-20 published between April 1927 and June 1930 by Transition with Shakespeare and Co., in Paris. Numbers 21-24 published between March 1932 and June 1936 by The Servire Press in The Hague. Volumes 25-27 published between fall 1936 and May 1938 by Transition in New York.
Included with the set is the Gertrude Stein’s ‘An Elucidation, printed in Transition, April 1927’ in original wrappers, and ‘Transition Pamphlet No 1’ (supplement to Transition no 23, 1934-35) containing the ‘Testimony against Gertrude Stein’.
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Price HK$ 45,000
1927 to 1938 - Transition Press, Paris - First Editions
A rare complete set of the most influential and important literary magazine between the wars. Edited by Eugene Jolas, contributors are a whose who of writers, poets and artists of this magnificent period, including but not limited to James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Georges Braque, Kay Boyle, Elliot Paul, Man Ray, Robert McAlmon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Picasso, André Breton, William Carlos Williams, Robert Graves, Hart Crane, André Gide, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Malcolm Cowley, Djuna Barnes, Franz Kafka, Harry Crosby, Archibald MacLeish, Samuel Beckett, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, Cartier-Bresson, Dylan Thomas, Louis Aragon, Le Corbusier and Aaron Copland.Numbers 1-20 published between April 1927 and June 1930 by Transition with Shakespeare and Co., in Paris. Numbers 21-24 published between March 1932 and June 1936 by The Servire Press in The Hague. Volumes 25-27 published between fall 1936 and May 1938 by Transition in New York.
Included with the set is the Gertrude Stein’s ‘An Elucidation, printed in Transition, April 1927’ in original wrappers, and ‘Transition Pamphlet No 1’ (supplement to Transition no 23, 1934-35) containing the ‘Testimony against Gertrude Stein’.
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Price HK$ 45,000
transition stories Twenty-three Stories from transition -
Eugene Jolas, Robert Sage (editors)
1929 - Walter V. McKee, New York - First Edition
‘It is necessary to break up the word, to construct an organic world of the imagination, and to give life a changed and spontaneous reality.’ – Eugene Jolas, from his preface.
The first collection of stories from avant-garde, inter-war literary journal, transition, featuring works by Kay Boyle, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Eliiot Paul, and Philippe Soupault and others, together with segments of James Joyce’s then-unfinished novel, Finnegan’s Wake, published here as ‘A Muster from Work in Progress.’
Founded in 1927 in Paris by poet Eugene Jolas (himself aided by expatriate bookseller Sylvia Beach and ‘lost generation’ bon vivant Harry Crosby), transition ran until the spring of 1938. In that 11 years and 27 issues – its experimental bent always unapologetically overt – the journal amassed an astounding pool of works by a trans-national cadre of writers, Surrealists, political activists, Dadaists, critics, and artists including Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, William Carlos Williams, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Joan Miró, and Paul Bowles, among many others, and as such, publishing for the first time some of the most linguistically and visually innovative art of the modern era.
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Price HK$ 3,500
1929 - Walter V. McKee, New York - First Edition
‘It is necessary to break up the word, to construct an organic world of the imagination, and to give life a changed and spontaneous reality.’ – Eugene Jolas, from his preface.The first collection of stories from avant-garde, inter-war literary journal, transition, featuring works by Kay Boyle, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Eliiot Paul, and Philippe Soupault and others, together with segments of James Joyce’s then-unfinished novel, Finnegan’s Wake, published here as ‘A Muster from Work in Progress.’
Founded in 1927 in Paris by poet Eugene Jolas (himself aided by expatriate bookseller Sylvia Beach and ‘lost generation’ bon vivant Harry Crosby), transition ran until the spring of 1938. In that 11 years and 27 issues – its experimental bent always unapologetically overt – the journal amassed an astounding pool of works by a trans-national cadre of writers, Surrealists, political activists, Dadaists, critics, and artists including Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, William Carlos Williams, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Joan Miró, and Paul Bowles, among many others, and as such, publishing for the first time some of the most linguistically and visually innovative art of the modern era.
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Price HK$ 3,500
Metamorphosis -
Franz Kafka, Leslie Sherman (illustrator), A. L. Lloyd (translator)
1946 - The Vanguard Press, New York - First American Edition, and First to be illustrated by Leslie Sherman
First American edition in fine and thus scarce first issue dust jacket (all brown and with price of $3.95 to front flap, and not to be confused with the second issue which had white flaps, white rear panel, and a price of ‘$2.75’).
Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an insect. ‘Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future’.
Originally published under the title of Die Verwandlung in Leipzig in 1915, Metamorphosis was first translated into English by A. L. Lloyd in 1937, and to this, the first American edition, were added illustrations by noted Beat Generation artist Leslie Sherman, and a preface by Paul Goodman (1911-72).
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Price HK$ 9,400
1946 - The Vanguard Press, New York - First American Edition, and First to be illustrated by Leslie Sherman
First American edition in fine and thus scarce first issue dust jacket (all brown and with price of $3.95 to front flap, and not to be confused with the second issue which had white flaps, white rear panel, and a price of ‘$2.75’).Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, Metamorphosis, the story of an ordinary man transformed into an insect. ‘Encompassing themes of spiritual isolation, rejection of social systems, disillusionment and despair in the face of an ungovernable future’.
Originally published under the title of Die Verwandlung in Leipzig in 1915, Metamorphosis was first translated into English by A. L. Lloyd in 1937, and to this, the first American edition, were added illustrations by noted Beat Generation artist Leslie Sherman, and a preface by Paul Goodman (1911-72).
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Price HK$ 9,400
Memoirs of a Booklegger -
Jack Kahane
1939 - Michael Joseph Ltd., London - First Edition
In the original scarce and unclipped dust jacket, not a common book as most of the edition were destroyed when a German bomb hit the publisher's warehouse.
Jack Kahane founded the Obelisk Press based in Paris, in France in 1929, he took advantage of the fact that books published in France in English were not subject to the kind of censorship practised in Britain at the time.
He published among others Henry Millers ‘Tropic of Capricorn’, which had explicit sexual passages and and could therefore not be published in the U.S. Other author’s included James Joyce, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence Durrell.
Kahane passed away just before the outbreak of World War II, having just finished this book of his memoirs. His son took over the press which later became the Olympia Press continuing in a similar tradition, being the first to publish works such as Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ and Burrough’s ‘Naked Lunch’ .
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Price HK$ 4,000
1939 - Michael Joseph Ltd., London - First Edition
In the original scarce and unclipped dust jacket, not a common book as most of the edition were destroyed when a German bomb hit the publisher's warehouse.Jack Kahane founded the Obelisk Press based in Paris, in France in 1929, he took advantage of the fact that books published in France in English were not subject to the kind of censorship practised in Britain at the time.
He published among others Henry Millers ‘Tropic of Capricorn’, which had explicit sexual passages and and could therefore not be published in the U.S. Other author’s included James Joyce, Anaïs Nin, and Lawrence Durrell.
Kahane passed away just before the outbreak of World War II, having just finished this book of his memoirs. His son took over the press which later became the Olympia Press continuing in a similar tradition, being the first to publish works such as Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ and Burrough’s ‘Naked Lunch’ .
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Price HK$ 4,000
The Dharma Bums -
Jack Kerouac
1958 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition
‘Who were all these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventure of earth with me? And who was I?’
A fine first edition in bright dust jacket with far less than the usual rubbing to which this black jacket is prone. Kerouac’s chronicle of carefree wanderers learning to meditate Buddhist style, the story of Ray Smith – obviously Kerouac himself – who after a self-imposed discipline in the wilds of Sierra Madres, and sixty days of summer solitude on the mountain top lookout Desolation Peak, returns to the world with a new ‘vision of the freedom of eternity...’
‘Book ends with a great holy Blah! At last America has a new visionary poet. So let us talk of Angels.’ - Allen Ginsberg.
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Price HK$ 14,000
1958 - The Viking Press, New York - First Edition
‘Who were all these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventure of earth with me? And who was I?’ A fine first edition in bright dust jacket with far less than the usual rubbing to which this black jacket is prone. Kerouac’s chronicle of carefree wanderers learning to meditate Buddhist style, the story of Ray Smith – obviously Kerouac himself – who after a self-imposed discipline in the wilds of Sierra Madres, and sixty days of summer solitude on the mountain top lookout Desolation Peak, returns to the world with a new ‘vision of the freedom of eternity...’
‘Book ends with a great holy Blah! At last America has a new visionary poet. So let us talk of Angels.’ - Allen Ginsberg.
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Price HK$ 14,000
Vanity of Duluoz: An Adventurous Education, 1935-46 -
Jack Kerouac
1968 - Coward-McCann, New York - First Edition
‘All right, wifey, maybe I’m a big pain in the you know what, but after I’ve given you a recitation of the troubles I had to go through to make good in America between 1935 and more or less now, 1967, and although I also know everybody in the world’s had his own troubles you’ll understand that my particular form of anguish came from being too sensitive to all the lunkheads I had to deal with...’
A bright first edition of Kerouac’s final novel published during his lifetime, the autobiographical tale of his alter-ego Jack Duluoz, recounting his experiences at Columbia University on a football scholarship in the 1930s to his coming of age serving in the US navy during WWII. When Duluoz returns to New York after the war, he abandons his former plans, and embarks upon a riot of drugs, sex and writing, as the Beat movement begins.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1968 - Coward-McCann, New York - First Edition
‘All right, wifey, maybe I’m a big pain in the you know what, but after I’ve given you a recitation of the troubles I had to go through to make good in America between 1935 and more or less now, 1967, and although I also know everybody in the world’s had his own troubles you’ll understand that my particular form of anguish came from being too sensitive to all the lunkheads I had to deal with...’A bright first edition of Kerouac’s final novel published during his lifetime, the autobiographical tale of his alter-ego Jack Duluoz, recounting his experiences at Columbia University on a football scholarship in the 1930s to his coming of age serving in the US navy during WWII. When Duluoz returns to New York after the war, he abandons his former plans, and embarks upon a riot of drugs, sex and writing, as the Beat movement begins.
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Price HK$ 3,000
It will be Warmer When it Snows -
Arthur La Bern
1966 - W. H. Allen, London - First Edition
A rare first edition of this ‘absorbing and brutally penetrating novel about a bankrupt and his crumbling world’, set in London.
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Price HK$ 1,800
1966 - W. H. Allen, London - First Edition
A rare first edition of this ‘absorbing and brutally penetrating novel about a bankrupt and his crumbling world’, set in London.
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Price HK$ 1,800
Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict -
William Lee (Pseud. William Burroughs)
1953 - Ace Double Books, New York - First Edition
A nice example of Burroughs' first published and perhaps most notorious book, in the "Ace Double" format with "Narcotic Agent" by Maurice Helbrant.. Protected in a black cloth clamshell case.
Published under the pseudonym William Lee (his mother’s maiden name) based widely on Burroughs’ experiences with heroin, AA Wyn’s cheap pulp fiction publishing house ‘Ace’ was the only one willing to risk printing something so controversial.
‘Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written’.
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Price HK$ 10,000
1953 - Ace Double Books, New York - First Edition
A nice example of Burroughs' first published and perhaps most notorious book, in the "Ace Double" format with "Narcotic Agent" by Maurice Helbrant.. Protected in a black cloth clamshell case.Published under the pseudonym William Lee (his mother’s maiden name) based widely on Burroughs’ experiences with heroin, AA Wyn’s cheap pulp fiction publishing house ‘Ace’ was the only one willing to risk printing something so controversial.
‘Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written’.
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Price HK$ 10,000