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Last of three Pop-Ups in the book.
Early pop-up book from the Disney studios featuring Mickey and the gang with the circus animals. The text Includes three color pop-ups and black & white illustrations throughout.
A 1980s book of fables with wonderful illustrations by Arnold Lobel.
Fables.
Written and Illustrated by Arnold Lobel
Published by Scholastic Inc; First Edition (1980)
From the blurb on the dust jacket:
"Messiah" by Gore Vidal will arouse anger and resentment in many people, it will shock them as "The Way of All Flesh" shocked them when it was first published; it will arouse argument and controversy, such as raged around Huxley's "Brave New World" and Orwell's "1984;" it will grip people while they read it and it will make them think.
Brain washing has become a recognized weapon; will soul washing come next? Will all the isms besetting humanity drive it into the arms of a new Messiah? Can television, advertising copy and high pressure publicity by exploiting man's inward religious urge lead him to anything, even death in preference to life? Can this happen here? Can it happen now?
These are some of the basic elements which make "Messiah" by Gore Vidal an absorbing, frightening and stimulating experience. This extraordinarily imaginative novel has a story of motion and action told in simple, economic words; it satirizes men and techniques, ridiculous in themselves, yet sinister in their intent and singleness of purpose; it gives a horribly real and vivid picture of a world that may come.
One of forty-nine photographs in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, (1970).
Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses (1836-1893) was a chief of the Oglala Sioux. He is known for his participation in Red Cloud’s War, as a negotiator for the Sioux Nation after the Wounded Knee Massacre, and for serving on delegations to Washington, D.C. Red Cloud’s War of 1866-1868 was the only Indian war to end in defeat for the United States and Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses served as an instrumental war leader during this conflict. [Source: Wikipedia]
The story takes place on the red planet sometime in the future when Mars is colonized by a group from Earth. The colonists find themselves with some of the problems that have been common to pioneers and colonists through the ages, and must fight to protect their liberties and independence. Thrilling adventures are in store for two boy colonists, Jim and Frank, and for Willis, a native volleyball-sized pet with the intelligence of a human child and a unique talent for sounds. At school, Jim and Frank uncover an evil plot by the unscrupulous administrator of Mars and they skate thousands of miles on frozen canals to warn their parents and the colony.
With cutlass and pistol she ruled the Spanish Main
Dead or alive the Spanish hidalgos wanted them, the fiery, beautiful Lizzie Hollister and Martin Chandos, the renegade Irishman. Their magic seamanship and gallant swords had cut a bloody swath across the deeps of the Spanish Main.
Lizzie, the English beauty, alone was a tempestuous prize for the man who could catch and tame her.
At their backs fought the galleon crew, a grim-faced cutthroat assembly, for whom kill and pillage were the laws of the sea and gold and jewels their rightful reward.
Published here before anywhere else are three stories by Edgar Allan Poe: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "A Descent Into the Maelstrom," and "The Island of the Fay."
Art by John Coleman Burroughs.
Deep in the heart of Africa rises a mighty cone-shaped mountain, an extinct volcano, in the huge crater of which lies "The Forbidden City of Ashair" where Atka, the cruel queen, rules: and Brulor, the false god, holds forth in his mysterious temple at the bottom of a great lake of crystal clearness.
To reach this inaccessible stronghold two safaris endure hardships and perils that bring death to some and high adventure to all. Love and hate and jealousy and intrigue play their parts in a battle of wits and endurance where courage and loyalty contend with duplicity, cruelty, superstition, and savagery.
One safari is bent on the rescue of the son of its leader from the clutches of Atka and the false god; the other, headed by a wily and unscrupulous oriental, seeks only The Father of Diamonds guarded by Brulor and his priests and Atka and her plumed warriors. There are hand-to-hand encounters with terrifying marine monsters among the wrecks of ancient galleys at the bottom of the great lake that spreads across the floor of the crater of Tuen-Baka.
Artist Rudolph Belarski (1900-1983) was renowned for his pulp magazine, paperback and men’s adventure magazine covers. He began painting professionally while still in his teens after an illustration of his was discovered on a wall in a coal processing plant. He fine tuned his talent at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn as a student and, later, he worked there as an instructor. Pulp magazines filled newsstands in the 30s and 40s and had a voracious appetite for full color artwork for their covers. Belarski produced covers that were among the best. He applied his enormous talent to paperbacks and comics in the 1950s and men’s magazines in the 1960s.
Using art based on designs for the film by Maurice Maeterlinck, The Blue Bird, Brian Wildsmith tells his 1970s version of this story, which has two children searching for the blue bird of happiness. : )
Wikipedia: "Brian Wildsmith (born 1930) is a painter and children's book illustrator. He won the 1962 Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration, for his ABC. In all his books the illustrations, usually in brilliant color, have been as important as the text. For his contribution as a children's illustrator Wildsmith was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966 and 1968."
“David Copperfield” is one of Dickens’ most popular and critically acclaimed novels. The story follows David’s life from childhood to maturity and many of its elements follow events in Dickens’ own life, especially in the early chapters describing David’s provincial upbringing. The story is filled with vivid characters such as Uriah Heep, Mr. Micawber, the Pegottys, and eccentric Aunt Betsey and it ranks as the finest of Dickens’ works. “Of all my books,” Dickens wrote in the preface to the 1867 edition, “I like this the best… like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.”
Publisher Bradbury & Evans first released the story in monthly parts from May, 1849 through November, 1850, and in book form in 1850. The text was embellished with full-page, black & white engravings by H. K. Browne (“Phiz”). Subscribers who wished a hardcover edition for their libraries would either purchase a copy from the publisher when available or have the serial parts bound into book form, often in leather. The two volume set shown here is one of the latter.
This book presents an anthology of gems selected by Peter Haining from the pages of Weird Tales. The book presents them as facsimile reproductions of the actual pages of the magazine. According to fantasy enthusiasts, Weird Tales was the first and the best of all the fantasy periodicals. It spanned thirty years of publication as a pulp from 1923-1954.
Some of the authors appearing in Haining's anthology are Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry S. Whitehead, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, Eric Frank Russell, August Derleth, Seabury Quinn, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch, Algernon Blackwood, and nearly every other major figure who contributed to Weird Tales.
Cover artist Margaret Brundage (1900-1976) sold 66 original pulp cover illustrations to Weird Tales from 1933 to 1945. Her covers were signed “M. Brundage” and were very popular with readers, but most of the public wasn’t aware the artist was female. When puritanical social forces complained about the overt sexuality of the art, the editor finally revealed that the artist was a woman, hoping to mollify the perceived offensiveness of her work.
As a woman in a field dominated by men, Brundage brought a unique aesthetic to pulp art. Most of her work was created with pastels on illustration board and often featured fantasy scenes of women trapped in sexually vulnerable situations. Brundage continued to create fantasy scenes in pastels for the rest of her life but was unable to find a steady publisher of her work after the publisher of Weird Tales moved to New York City in 1938. After a divorce from a drunken husband and the death of her only son, Brundage’s later years were spent in relative poverty. Check out the “Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists” for more on Brundage (www.pulpartists.com/Brundage.html).
Adorable puppies in a vintage book about sled dogs.
A Puppy Named Gih.
Written by Sara Machetanz
Illustrated by Fred Machetanz
Published by Charles Scribner's Sons; First edition (1957)
T. Nelson Downs created a classic in coin magic known as "The Miser's Dream" and "Modern Coin Manipulation," the author's first book, is where this famous trick was first published, along with other tricks in his repertoire as the "King of Koins." The book is still issued in reprints today and, being out of copyright, can also be read online for free.
archive.org/details/moderncoinmanip00downgoog
"The Miser's Dream" is an impressive sleight-of-hand trick in which the magician continually pulls coins out of the air and drops them in a container, usually a hat or a bucket. The coins appear at his fingertips and are then dropped into the container with a clinking sound.
From "The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie" by Richard Wagner. New York: Doubleday Page & Co., 1910. First American Edition
The “Nuremberg Chronicle” is an illustrated world history that follows the story of humankind related in the Bible, from Creation to Last Judgment. It was written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel in the city of Nuremberg and is one of the best-documented early printed books – an incunabulum – and one of the first to successfully integrate illustrations and text. The publisher and printer was Anton Koberger, the godfather of Albrecht Durer. The large workshop of Michael Wolgemut, then Nuremberg’s leading artist, provided the unprecedented 1,809 woodcut illustrations. Albrecht Durer was an apprentice with Wolgemut from 1486 to 1489, so may well have participated in designing some of the illustrations for the specialist craftsmen who cut the blocks.
Approximately 400 Latin and 300 German copies of the Chronicle survived into the twenty-first century. Some copies were broken up for sale as decorative prints. The larger illustrations in the book were sold separately, often hand-colored in watercolor. Many copies of the book are also colored, with varying degrees of skill; there were specialist shops for this. The coloring on some examples has been added much later.
First, a man and a woman are subjects of a top-secret government experiment designed to produce extraordinary psychic powers. Then, they are married and have a child. A daughter. Early on the daughter shows signs of a wild and horrifying force growing within her. Desperately, her parents try to train her to keep that force in check, to "act normal." Now the government wants its brainchild back - for its own insane ends.
"Firestarter" was adapted into a movie in 1984:
Charles Willeford (misspelled "Williford" on the book cover) is best known for his series of novels featuring hardboiled detective Hoke Moseley. The first Hoke Moseley book, Miami Blues (1984), is considered one of its era's most influential works of crime fiction. Film adaptations have been made of three of Willeford's novels: Cockfighter, Miami Blues and The Woman Chaser. According to crime novelist Lawrence Block, "Willeford wrote quirky books about quirky characters and seems to have done so with a magnificent disregard for what anyone else thought." [Source: Wikipedia]
This paperback is a double novel with High Priest (Willeford’s first novel) paired with Wild Wives (his third novel). Beacon was one of the largest purveyors of sleaze paperbacks in the 1950s. (Today, Beacon books would barely register on the sleaziness scale.)
This is plate 39 in Gaspey’s “Book of the World,” which contains 35 full-page, hand-colored engravings. Colored engravings of that period were virtually always colored by hand with water colors.
"Das arme Jesulein. Gemalt und geschrieben von Ida Bohatta-Morpurgo
Verlag - Josef Müller, München"
Mother's childhood Christmas storybook.
Written and illustrated by Ida Bohatta-Morpurgo de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Bohatta
First edition, 1931
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1931. A szegény Kisjézus.
Írta és illusztrálta: Ida Bohatta Morpurgo de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Bohatta
Mamám gyerekkori karácsonyi mesekönyve
Kiadó: Josef Müller Verlag, München. Első kiadás
....Shows the Way.
Written by Donald Sobol
Illustrated by Leonard Shortall
Published by Weekly Reader Books (1972)
"Das arme Jesulein. Gemalt und geschrieben von Ida Bohatta-Morpurgo
Verlag - Josef Müller, München"
Mother's childhood Christmas storybook.
Written and illustrated by Ida Bohatta-Morpurgo de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Bohatta
First edition, 1931
--------------------------------------
1931. A szegény Kisjézus.
Írta és illusztrálta: Ida Bohatta Morpurgo de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Bohatta
Mamám gyerekkori karácsonyi mesekönyve
Kiadó: Josef Müllerr Verlag, München. Első kiadás
“The Complete Book of Outer Space” is a collection of essays about space exploration that first appeared as a magazine, published by Maco Magazine Corp. The hardcover book was produced mainly for libraries and is the rarest of all Gnome imprints. The dust jacket illustration is by Chesley Bonestell.
Contents
"A Preview of the Future: Introduction", by Jeffrey Logan
"Development of the Space Ship", by Willy Ley
"Station in Space", by Wernher von Braun
"Space Medicine", by Heinz Haber
"Space Suits", by Donald H. Menzel
"The High Altitude Program", by Robert P. Haviland
"History of the Rocket Engine", by James H. Wyld
"Legal Aspects of Space Travel", by Oscar Schachter
"Exploitation of the Moon", by Hugo Gernsback
"Life Beyond the Earth", by Willy Ley
"Interstellar Flight", by Leslie R. Shepard
"The Spaceship in Science Fiction", by Jeffrey Logan
"Plea for a Coordinated Space Program", by Wernher von Braun
"The Flying Saucer Myth", by Jeffrey Logan
"The Panel of Experts"
"Chart of the Moon Voyage"
"Chart of the Voyage to Mars"
"Timetables and Weights"
"A Space Travel Dictionary"
One of the greatest American illustrators of the 20th century, N. C. Wyeth created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books, 25 of them for Scribner’s. He was the father of Andrew Wyeth and the grandfather of Jamie Wyeth, both famous artists in their own right.
From "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. London: William Heinemann, 1905. First Rackham Trade Edition.
From the back cover:
"The dream of being a superman came true for Max Quest - and immediately turned into a nightmare. He was not alone. There were Others with extraordinary powers, and the last thing they wanted was another superman on Earth - especially one working for good instead of evil. They couldn't kill him. But they could send him ... elsewhere.
Elsewhere was the viciously hostile world of Qanar, where Max's powers didn't work and sorcery was a more potent weapon than science, where shadows were as menacing as steel. Max Quest still had to save Earth from the corrupt threat of the Others - but he found his destiny intricately linked with that of Qanar as well. And somewhere in space-time was his lost love..."
A page from Arnold Lobel's "Fables" book.
Fables.
Written and Illustrated by Arnold Lobel
Published by Scholastic Inc; First Edition (1980)
“The Chase of the Golden Meteor” was one of Jules Verne’s last novels. Verne’s son, Michel, extensively edited the novel before its publication in 1908, three years after his father’s death. An asteroid wanders into the earth’s gravitational field and is spotted by two rival astronomers in the same small town in Virginia, and they attempt to claim credit for themselves. The discovery becomes a worldwide sensation when it is announced that the asteroid is solid gold and is plummeting toward earth. Another eccentric amateur scientist, Zephyrin Xirdal, invents a ray which will cause the golden meteor to fall where he chooses. Xirdal, the two Virginia astronomers and their families, and representatives from many nations race to find and claim the golden meteor.
The book is seen as less an early example of hard science fiction than a social satire lampooning greed, monomania and vanity. It combines hard science and scientific speculation with a farcical comedy of manners. Grant Richards in London published the first English translation of the novel (as revised by Michel Verne) with 24 illustrations by George Roux.
From the book "Peter and Wendy" by J. M. Barrie. London: Hodder & Stoughton, (1911). First edition. This is the first book that tells the story of Peter Pan, Wendy and their exploits in Neverland along with the now familiar cast of characters that includes Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and Tiger Lily.
From the book "Peter and Wendy" by J. M. Barrie. London: Hodder & Stoughton, (1911). First edition. This is the first book that tells the story of Peter Pan, Wendy and their exploits in Neverland along with the now familiar cast of characters that includes Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and Tiger Lily.
Doughty’s short-lived magazine “The Cabinet of Natural History and American Rural Sports” is an important imprint in the history of American printing. It contained the first colored sporting prints made in America. Issued in monthly parts and published from the end of 1830 until the spring of 1834, “The Cabinet” featured articles on hunting, detailed descriptions of newly discovered flora and fauna, and some of the finest examples of early American hand-colored lithography. It was originally the work of the Doughty brothers, Thomas and John, with virtually all of the plates being the work of Thomas, who also founded the Hudson River School. But, by the spring of 1832, the partnership had broken up and Thomas had moved to Boston. An abbreviated third volume (not included here) lacked Thomas’ touch.
Walter Gibson was an accomplished magician as well as an author. Under the Street & Smith house name of Maxwell Grant, he created and wrote 282 of the 325 novels about the most famous crimefighter to battle evil-doers in the pages of pulp magazines -- "The Shadow." So in creating his other crimefighting hero, "Norgil, the Magician," Gibson combined his talents as a mystery writer and a leading authority on magic. "Magic and mystery are so closely interwoven," he once wrote, "that it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins."
Stories about Norgil first appeared in pulp magazines such as "Crime Busters" and "Mystery Magazine" during the 1930's and 40's. Each story employs a famous stage illusion as a plot device, and Norgil is a solitary representation of several real-life magicians who made those tricks popular. These long-lost stories are collected here for the first time in book form.
This is a lovely version of Rudyard Kipling's tale accompanied with charming illustrations by Feodor Rojankovsky. --The little elephant gets by with his very short "nose", but you will be surprised how elephants got their longer trunk. : )
Drink: Coffee
Food: Shortbread biscuits
Book: Verdict of 13: A Detection Club Anthology (1979 first edition, Faber & Faber, jacket art by Peter Branfield)
I found this for $2 at a recent book fair. It's fantastic, with short stories from Christianna Brand, Peter Dickinson, Patricia Highsmith, Dick Francis, Julian Symons, P. D. James, Ngaio Marsh, Celia Fremlin, H.R.F. Keating, Michael Innes, Gwendoline Butler, Michael Gilbert and Michael Underwood.
Met "Gus the Firefly." This fun little fellow was created by P. D. Eastman for the 1958 book "Sam and the Firefly."
The first American edition of “The Phantom of the Opera” is illustrated with a color frontispiece and four double-page color illustrations by Andre Castaigne (1861-1929). The book’s author, Gaston Leroux (1868-1927), was a French journalist and writer of detective fiction. Though this is his most famous novel, he also authored a popular series of “locked room” mysteries including The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Perfume of the Lady in Black. But The Phantom of the Opera is, by far, his most influential novel and the basis of many film adaptations, beginning with Lon Chaney Sr. in 1925, as well as the basis of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, one of the most successful of all time.
First of three Pop-Ups in the book.
Early pop-up book from the Disney studios featuring Mickey and the gang with the circus animals. The text Includes three color pop-ups and black & white illustrations throughout.
An early acolyte of H. P. Lovecraft, Brian Lumley emerged as a talented and versatile writer in the domain of the uncanny. He developed his own imaginative adaptation of the Cthulhu Mythos in stories that range from the nethermost regions of subterranean dread to the star flung spaces beyond the rim of the world.
The title story, "The Horror at Oakdeene," begins within the eerie confines of Oakdeene Sanatorium, where an invocation from the pages of the Cthaat Aquadingen leads the reader into the realm of nightmare. Another story, "The Statement of Henry Worthy," opens on the bleak Yorkshire moors and culminates in a primeval cavern where a race of hideous fungoid anomalies lurk.
Also included in the volume is Lumley's short novel, "Born of the Winds," in which the reader is taken on a trek across the Great White North, lacerated by icy arctic winds and confronted by the Ithaqua legend, an entity of awesome cosmic malevolence. Other tales of the occult and the macabre in this collection are "The Viking's Stone," "Aunt Hester," "No Way Home," "The Cleaner Woman," and "Darghud's Doll."
While attempting to escape a civil war, four people are kidnapped and transported to the Tibetan mountains. After their plane crashes, they are found by a mysterious Chinese man. He leads them to a monastery hidden in "the valley of the blue moon" -- a land of mystery and matchless beauty. The book was turned into a movie, also called Lost Horizon, by director Frank Capra in 1937. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.
"Have Gun – Will Travel" was an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958. Of the 225 episodes of the television series, 24 were written by Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek," and 19 were directed by series star Richard Boone, who portrays Paladin, a gun for hire. His portrait is on the book cover.
Graham, the central character of the novel, awakens into a troubled world after a two-hundred year slumber, much like Rip Van Winkle. The compound interest on his bank accounts has made him the richest man in the world and a very powerful one indeed. A trust known as the White Council used Graham’s wealth to establish a vast political and economic world order, which is now much hated by the people. Word spreads that the fabled sleeper has awakened and the people demand to see him. The Council, which rules the world in his name, prefers that he remain out of the way and places him under house arrest. He is liberated by revolutionaries and he soon learns the ugly truth about this new world, which persuades him to take part in the revolution.
The novel has plenty of action which more than makes up for the author’s socialist inclinations. It has engine-driven “aeroplanes” with 600-foot wing spans and smaller, nimbler “aeropiles,” it has a revolution and a counter-revolution, and there are battles fought in the air for supremacy.
A group of eight boys set out to go trick-or-treating on Halloween, only to discover that a ninth friend, Pipkin, has been whisked away on a journey that could determine whether he lives or dies. Through the help of a mysterious character named Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, they pursue their friend across time and space through Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, Celtic Druidism, Notre Dame Cathedral in Medieval Paris, and The Day of the Dead in Mexico. Along the way, they learn the origins of the holiday that they celebrate, and the role that the fear of death, spooks, and the haunts has played in shaping civilization. The Halloween Tree itself, with its many branches laden with jack-o'-lanterns, serves as a metaphor for the historical confluence of these traditions.
The novel originated in 1967 as the screenplay for an unproduced collaboration with animator Chuck Jones. In 1992, Bradbury wrote and narrated a feature-length animated version of the novel for television, for which he won an Emmy Award. [Source: Wikipedia]
From "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. London: William Heinemann, 1905. First Rackham Trade Edition.
“The Apollo spacecraft will be manned by three astronauts. Two will land on the Moon in the Lunar Excursion Module (see preliminary model above). To return, they will blast off in the top part, leaving the lower section behind. They will then join the third man in the Command and Space Module for the trip back to Earth. The upper part of the LEM will remain in orbit around the Moon.” (The description accompanies the photo and is what actually happened three years later on Apollo 11.)