Rare Finds - A Guide to Rare Book Collecting

“A Bona-Fide English Hero”
In August 1907, Ernest Shackleton, who had initially gained fame as a member of Scott’s 1901-02 expedition, left London as commander of his own expedition on board the Nimrod. He achieved worldwide acclaim for having reached within 97 miles of the South Pole, almost four years before Amundsen’s and Scott’s expeditions would […]

“Flashes of Genius by an Expert in Self-Destruction”
In 1925 Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby to immediate critical acclaim and popular success. Eight years later, he was no closer to delivering another novel.
His editor at Scribner’s, the legendary Maxwell Perkins, worried about Fitzgerald but never lost faith, writing to him in August of 1933, “Whenever any […]

“We ain’t gonna die out. People is going’ on - changin’ a little, maybe, but goin’ right on.”
In November of 1933, a vast dust cloud rose over an area stretching from Texas to the Great Plains, the beginning of an ecological disaster that would blacken the sky all the way to Chicago. Over the next […]

“It was a great idea to bring them together; celebrities of the same generation, of similar virtuosity” - Monroe Wheeler on the Joyce-Matisse Ulysses
George Macy’s decision to commission Henri Matisse to illustrate Ulysses was a bold move for his fledgling Limited Editions Club in 1935. Scandal still swirled around James Joyce’s masterpiece, which had been […]

“America’s First Great Scientific Contribution”
Until the mid-18th century electricity was little more than a parlor trick used to delight kings and amaze crowds. One such itinerant “electrician” aroused Benjamin Franklin’s curiosity, and he embarked on a series of experiments that would “snatch lightning from the sky,” opening up the new field of electrical science and […]

“Leave My Book, I Beg You, To The Immortality That It Deserves” - Oscar Wilde
When The Picture of Dorian Gray first appeared in Lippincott’s simultaneously in Philadelphia and London, on June 20, 1890, the story sparked a sensation. “No novel had commanded so much attention for years, or awakened sentiments so contradictory in its readers” […]

“The Most Sustained Achievement In Fantasy For Children By A 20th-Century Author”
An Oxford professor who also wrote literary criticism, fiction for adults and Christian apologetics, C.S. Lewis is primarily known for his extraordinary fantasy series, the Chronicles of Narnia. “All my seven Narnia books,” Lewis once wrote, “began with seeing pictures in my head… The […]

“A Remarkable Work” (T.E. Lawrence on Richard Burton’s El Medinah and Meccah)
Arguably among the greatest and most fascinating figures in British exploration, the brilliant and intrepid Burton was granted permission by the Royal Geographical Society in 1853 to map the as yet unknown portions of the eastern and central Arabian peninsula.
Burton resolved to wend his […]

“The One Great Christmas Myth of Modern Literature”
Drawing on his childhood memories of extreme poverty and his indignation at society’s neglect of the destitute, Charles Dickens conceived A Christmas Carol during a solitary evening walk through the streets of Manchester in October 1843. Writing at a frantic pace, he completed in six weeks what would […]

“His Acknowledged Masterpiece”
Arthur Rackham’s captivating illustrations of fairies, goblins and a host of other-worldly creatures firmly established his reputation as one of the preeminent illustrators of the “Golden Age” of children’s literature. Without question, one of his finest and most desirable works is Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, published in a deluxe signed limited edition […]