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Posted in Rare Books on Nov 10th, 2008
“I will leave judgements on this matter to history - but I will be one of the historians.” - Winston Churchill
“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.” Churchill penned his monumental six-volume History of the Second World War only a few years after the war’s end, including in it [...]
Posted in signed on Sep 29th, 2008
“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 [...]
Posted in Rare Books on Jul 25th, 2008
“A Human Panorama of Love, Courage, Cowardice…
Deceit And Folly”: Boccaccio’s Decameron
“Could there be stories without a moral, of human adventure and misadventure? The horrors of the plague provided Boccaccio with the incentive and the opportunity…Boccaccio creates a human panorama of love, courage, cowardice, wit, wisdom, deceit and folly… If he does not teach the art [...]
Posted in First Editions, Rare Books on Jul 11th, 2008
“Passages Of Unearthly Beauty”
Joyce began writing Finnegans Wake in 1922, the same year Ulysses saw publication. Compared to that book, Finnegans Wake “took longer to write… was conceived and executed under a greater range of symbolic and mythic guidelines, was dictated to more famous amanuenses, among them Samuel Beckett, was used as a weapon [...]
Posted in Rare Books on Jun 8th, 2008
“Americans! In Your Congress At Philadelphia… You Laid Down The Fundamental Principles… Life, Liberty And Property”
John Adams’ highly contested Discourses on Davila was prompted by Jefferson’s firm declaration of “his faith in reason and democracy… as the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs.” Alarmed by the fresh violence of the French [...]