Throughout the history of book collecting, among the most sought after copies have been those inscribed and presented by their authors. The list of what one could dream of acquiring is endless. The first edition of Leaves of Grass that Whitman presented to Thoreau. The copy of The Great Gatsby that Fitzgerald inscribed to T. S. Eliot, from “his enthueusiastic worshipper” (Fitzgerald was renowned for his poor spelling). The publisher Sylvia Beach’s copy of Ulysses, inscribed to her, with poem, by Joyce: “in token of gratitude.”

For the collector, the significance of the inscribed copy is tremendous; not only do we have proof that this copy was actually once in the author’s hands, but it shows a personal glimpse as well — a phrase, a quote, an intimate message, a beautifully written script or an illegible scrawl. View our current selection.

On an August night in 1943, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy’s patrol boat PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and burst into flames. Badly wounded, Kennedy saved a fellow crewman in a rescue that earned him a Purple Heart and the Navy and Marine Corp Medal “for extremely heroic conduct.” A decade later Kennedy spent six months recuperating from surgery for a spinal injury suffered that night. Strapped to a board and immobilized, Kennedy turned to history for perspective on that test he had survived and, most importantly, for a guide to the challenges he faced as a newly elected senator. As Arthur Schlesinger recalled in A Thousand Days, “it was the tension between means and ends which fascinated and bothered Kennedy… Profiles in Courage represented his most sustained attempt to penetrate the moral dilemmas of the political
life.” In his notes for the book, Kennedy observed: “Politics is a jungle.”

In Profiles in Courage Kennedy looks at eight American senators, including John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster and Sam Houston, whose lives provide a path through the challenges of political life and toward America’s future. Here is Kennedy’s tribute to those who best inspire faith in “the cause of principle… that is the basis of all human morality.” We are pleased to offer a rare inscribed copy of Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work in the scarce original dust jacket and housed in a custom clamshell. Browse our current selection.

George Gershwin had wanted to write an opera about the African-American experience long before he read DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy in 1926. But in Heyward’s portrayal of life on “Catfish Row”—based on the very real Cabbage Row in Heyward’s hometown of Charleston—Gershwin recognized his material. He immediately wrote to Heyward to suggest a joint project. Heyward agreed to the proposal, but both he and Gershwin were busy with other projects and the two men delayed their collaboration.

In 1934 Gershwin finally began work on the opera. When Porgy and Bess premiered in 1935, it was not successful, but it was controversial. Some questioned the use of African-American dialect and even Gershwin’s use of the opera form was criticized as being unconvincing and too “popular.” In the end, Gershwin and Heyward both lost money on the project. It was not until years after Gershwin’s death that the opera became popular with audiences, and it was decades before it finally received acceptance within the opera world. Today, Porgy and Bess represents the best that American opera has to offer.

We offer a deluxe limited edition of the piano-vocal score, signed on the limitation page by George and Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Rouben Mamoulian, who produced the premiere. This copy is additionally inscribed and signed again by both George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. Because of Gershwin’s tragic early death in 1937, inscribed copies of any of his works are exceedingly rare. View our current Porgy and Bess inventory.