Write a Madder Letter If You Can: the Letters of Jack Kerouac to Ed White, 1947-1969

Commentary by Ed White. Introduction by John Leland.

An important collection of 43 lengthy letters and 16 postcards written from Jack Kerouac to Ed White, the majority unpublished and composed prior to the 1957 publication of On the Road. White and Kerouac met in 1946 as undergraduates at Columbia University and White’s suggestion that Kerouac spontaneously “sketch” his ideas in a pocket notebook greatly impacted his friend’s narrative style – Kerouac would later confess to Neal Cassady, “It’s the only way to write.” These letters chart an important friendship from its Columbia days onward and document the writing and publication of Kerouac’s major novels. 

93 pp.; 6 x 9 inches; pictorial wrappers. $25. 

BIRDS

Margaret Atwood, Billy Sullivan

A limited edition book featuring bird drawings by Billy Sullivan and an essay by Margaret Atwood.

Artist Billy Sullivan lives and works in New York City and East Hampton, NY. He has exhibited extensively since the early 1970s, and is in the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. Sullivan has been documenting the avian activity in his wooded backyard from his East Hampton dining room table since 1990. In these drawings, Sullivan captures the social goings-on of East End birds in much the same way he has chronicled family and friends in his paintings. 

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honorary degrees. She is the author of more than fifty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction, and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid’s Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. An avid birder and respected conservationist, Atwood is co-honoary president -- with her partner Graeme Gibson -- of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. 

The entire edition, published in conjunction with the exhibition BILLY SULLIVAN: BIRD DRAWINGS, consists of 450 copies, 350 in wrappers, and 100 deluxe cloth-bound copies signed by both the writer and artist.

27 pp.; 9 x 6 inches

Wrappers, $75
Deluxe edition of 100 cloth-bound copies, signed by artist and author, $275
 

Woolf at the Beach!

An important collection documenting the life and work of Virginia Woolf, the woman who helped to bring literature -- and women -- from the Victorian age into the modern era. Beekman's collection spans Woolf's entire life, shining a light into her youth and adolescence, her familial and romantic relationships over time, her printing and publishing work at The Hogarth Press and, of course, her own writing.

Featuring original color photographs by David Levinthal.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Virginia Woolf: The Flight of Time, at The Forbes Gallery in New York City, from November 21, 2011 – January 14, 2012 and Woolf at the Beach in our East Hampton gallery July - August 2012. 

134 pp.; 9 x 6 in., pictorial wrappers, $65

Deluxe limited edition, one of 25 copies, slipcased with a limited print numbered and signed by Levinthal. $2500

The Ezra Pound Collection of Marcella Spann Booth

From the library of scholar Marcella Spann Booth, a collection of Ezra Pound books given to her by the author. As a graduate student, Booth was introduced to Pound while he was incarcerated at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington D.C. She became his student and the books from her shelves are rich with his legacy.

red paper boards; in full color; gilt stamping.$15.

Shimla by Meena Alexander

For a month in the summer of 2010 I lived in Shimla, in the old Viceregal Lodge. I had a suite of rooms, with a terrace that looked out onto the Himalayas. I was carrying a copy of Basho with me and somehow felt his lines would help me in my journey.  Sometimes I would sit on the terrace and write, sometimes  in the shadow of a pipal tree.  Images came  to me as I walked on the twisting paths.  Other places are also evoked in this cycle of poems : Lodi Gardens in Delhi, where I used to live; Bryant Park, a place I love in New York City;  Sendai in Japan which I could only imagine.                  

~ Meena Alexander, New York City, April 2012

Shimla includes "Lady Dufferin's Terrace," which appeared in The New Yorker in September, 2011. It is available as follows:

25 signed copies, letterpress, in patterened cloth, $125      

125 signed copies, letterpress, in red handmade paper, sewn, $40

Poetry of the Southern Literary Renaissance

An important collection of twentieth-century Southern literature, including landmark publications from the Agrarian and Fugitive movements and notable association copies from key figures.

31pp.; green paper covers. $15

The James Joyce Collection of Alexander Neubauer

Features over 100 books, letters, photographs, and manuscripts by and about James Joyce and covering all corners of his life and work: books he presented to friends, volumes from his personal library, letters to his family, and archives from his publishers. Acquired mainly between 1998 and 2010, the items come from the collection of Alexander Neubauer. Featuring original color photographs by David Levinthal. 

147 pp.; 7 x 10 in., cloth, $125. 

Deluxe limited edition, one of 25 copies, with a numbered, signed Levinthal print. $2500.

This Isn’t Folly, This Is Me

A publication of 76 excerpted manuscripts and letters to and from Jack Kerouac, the majority of them unpublished. The book includes his selected correspondence with individuals such as Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. While this title "represent[s] only a fraction of the hundreds of letters and journal entries Kerouac wrote during his lifetime; nonethless, they contain the essence of what we need to know about him as a writer and as a man" (from the introduction by Joyce Johnson). 

93pp.; 6"x9"; black paper wrappers.

$35

“After the Fall”: From Stage to Screen

Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Abby Mann

A history of Miller’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe, told through the archive of material he devoted to working out that relationship after her death through writing and revising the autobiographical play After the Fall and then in adapting for the screen with Oscar-winning screenwriter Abby Mann. 2,000 copies.

19pp., one photographic illustration. 6” x 8½” Wrappers, $25

(Mis)adventure: Malcolm Lowry & Conrad Aiken

Both sides of this vital dialogue between Malcolm Lowry – dissolute, destitute, and laboriously writing Under the Volcano (1947) – and Conrad Aiken: his literary mentor, financial resource, an emotional security blanket, and friend.

37pp., three illustrations. 6” x 8½” Wrappers, $25

From the Library of Lionel and Diana Trilling

A listing over 400 books from the Trillings’ library; each book includes a specially made bookplate.

47pp., 8½” x 11” Wrappers, $25

A Faun’s Afternoon

Stéphane Mallarmé
Richard Howard trans.

Howard’s translation of Mallarmé’s poem. 125 signed copies, of which 25 have been specially bound.

9pp., 6¼” x 9½” Wrappers, $75; Cloth, $350

“Cherchez La Femme…”: Jacqueline Kennedy on “Jackie”

Carl Anthony, Jacqueline Kennedy

A history of Kennedy’s interaction with Carl Anthony’s typescript chapter devoted to her for First Ladies (Vol. II. NY: William Morrow, 1991). Kennedy’s copiously annotated copy in effect creates a third version of the text. 1,500 copies.

19pp., one photographic illustration.6” x 8½” Wrappers, $25

T.S. Eliot

Near-complete bibliographical collection of T.S. Eliot’s books and contributions – printed and editorial –  to books and periodicals. The foundation of the collection was built by Stanley Revell, and then fine-tuned by Canadian lawyer William Poole.

84pp., one color illustration. 6” x 9” Wrappers, $25

Drafts and Fragments

Ezra Pound

Facsimile edition of six of Pound’s manuscript notebooks for Drafts & Fragments, presenting Pound’s earliest concept for the Paradiso section that ends his Cantos, in a version so true to the original that the reader will want to touch each page to feel the impression of Pound’s pen in the paper, the dampness of his fresh ink, his embossed address, the pasted-in postage stamps. 500 copies.

Six notebooks and a prefatory volume, 5¾” x 8” Wrappers, housed in cardboard slipcase, $350.

Arches and Angels

Cornelia Foss, Elizabeth Hardwick and Hugh Hardy

Foss’s  “vibrant and colorful” memories of Rome; with essays by Hardwick and Hardy. 150 copies; 10 specially bound copies with an original watercolor by Foss.

13pp., six illustrations; 6 ¾” x 9 ¼” Wrappers, $35; Cloth, with original watercolor, $750