Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair: Five Rare Books for Collectors

The Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, New York, runs September 27-28 with a preview night September 26. Highlights offered by Peter Harrington at the fair include: 

Il dissoluto punito osia il Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Friedrich Rochlitz

First edition (1801) of the full orchestral score, including the German libretto in the rare original wrappers and well-preserved unrestored condition.  

No Thanks by E. E. Cummings

First edition (Golden Eagle Press, 1935), signed “holograph” issue, one of nine special copies with the explicit poem “the boys i mean are not refined” on p. 44 added by E. E. Cummings in manuscript and hand-corrected by him on p. 69. The expletive-filled poem was considered too risqué to publish, and the work was issued with a blank page instead. A pencilled note beside Cummings’s signature on the front free endpaper notes that this was the “designer’s copy” owned by artist and book designer John Alfred Begg who worked at the Golden Eagle Press. Cummings’s mother gave him the money to self-publish the work. He dedicated it to the 14 well-known firms who had turned it down, incorporating the title into the list of their names, “[No Thanks] to . . .”, printed in the shape of a funeral urn.

A full run of Heresies by Heresies Collective

A rare complete run of the groundbreaking feminist periodical, devoted to the examination of art and politics from a multitude of feminist perspectives, one of the most formidable documents of second and third-wave feminism. Contributors to early issues included Louise Bourgeois, Laurie Anderson, Judy Chicago, Yayoi Kusama, Carolee Schneeman, Martha Rosler, Adrienne Riche, Amy Sillman, and Ntozake Shange. This set additionally includes a copy of the second edition of issue 5, The Great Goddess, and issue no. 25 complete with Claire Morgan’s handmade artist’s book The Secret loosely inserted at the rear.