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Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

@riverrunbooks

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Rare, antiquarian & unusual books: literature, art, photography, fine press, &c. We publish books: @understorybooks. Personal account: @tom.lecky

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Jack Kerouac’s typescript scroll of his landmark novel ‘On the Road’ sold for $12.135 million at Christie’s auction of the Jim Irsay Collection last week — a new world record for a literary manuscript at auction.

I was honored to acquire it on behalf of a client.

The previous record was set by the same manuscript, which I handled with Christie’s book department in 2001. My first encounter with this group of manuscripts came a year earlier, at the New York Public Library and a bank vault in Lowell, Massachusetts. Last week marked twenty-six years since that introduction.

The sale fell on Kerouac’s birthday. by @riverrunbooks

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7 months ago

A nearly complete set of the famed Birch Bark Books of Henry Abbott. Complete sets are very rare of the books and are known to be in the collections of the Adirondack Museum and the Owen D. Young Library, St. Lawrence University; and in two private collections. This set lacks two of the 19 titles: The Anxious Seat (1914) and Old-Bare-Back and Others (1917). Each volume is signed in pencil on the front free endpaper with a Christmas greeting. Now available on our website. by @riverrunbooks

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10 months ago

Announcing the publication of Elaine Bleakney’s TAKE THE EXIT THEN EXIT from our imprint Understory Books. Forthcoming in April 2026, the book has already received praise from Jennifer Chang, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist AN AUTHENTIC LIFE: “What is so brave and surprising about Take the Exit Then Exit is that moving through these fragments we arrive at a clear-eyed vision of the self’s ferocity and a radiance that shines - ‘creaking singing’- like truth.” The book is available for preorder now via the link in bio. Reviewers are encouraged to request review copies! @understorybooks by @riverrunbooks

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a year ago

TIS THE SEASON FOR A SHAPED BOOK – Robert McBLAIR. A Modern Version of the Night Before Christmas. New York: Woolly Whale Press, 1932. Text block and covers in the shape of a cocktail shaker; text printed on silvered paper, original printed aluminum covers.

COCKTAIL SHAKER SHAPED BOOK, issued as Christmas keepsake for Mr. and Mrs. Melbert B. Cary, Jr. and printed at the Press of the Woolly Whale. A satirical spoof on Clement Clarke Moore’s famous Christmas poem, its first lines set the mood: “ ‘Twas the night before Christmas, / When all through the flat / Not a creature was sober, Not even the cat.”

While no limitation is given it is notably scarce: OCLC locates only 10 copies. A copy was found in the celebrated collection of the book arts, The History of the Book: The Cornelius J. Hauck Collection (Christie’s New York, 2006). DM or email if interested! by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

HARRISON STEREOGRAPHIC BINDING. The Rainbow. Edited by A. J. McDonald. Albany and New York: A. L. Harrison, 1847. First edition, first issue (title and binding dated 1847, not cancelled). 8vo (19.7 x 12.5 cm). Engraved title with vignette after Turner and nine engraved plates after Darley, Rembrandt, and other artists. (Foxed.) Original full cream calf, heavily gilt, stamped in red, brown, and green, all edges gilt, decorated glazed end papers, signed in gilt at the head and foot of the spine “A. L. Harrison, Binders” / “Patent Stereographic Binding” (wear to boards edges and joints, lower front joint partly split, rubbing and some darkening).

Provenance: Lois P. Shipman (manuscript gift label on front pastedown: “Presented to Miss Lois P. Shipman as a memorial of affection By her Friend John B. Clayton” additionally stamped in gilt on front cover with her name and date “Jan 1st 1847” and on rear cover “WHEN YOU SEE THIS / REMEMBER ME.”

A personalized gift copy of a celebrated gift book, with Harrison’s stereographic binding bearing intimate presentation stamping to a woman reader, thus combining the binder’s hand arts with the stamping and finishing processes Harrison employed. This anthology collected numerous female writers, including Sarah Helen Whitman (Poe’s fiancee), as well as works by William Gilmore Simms and the publisher James T. Fields. The title poem is by Thomas Campbell. This is the first issue of the book, bearing the 1847 date on the title and spine of the binding. Slow sales prompted the publisher to alter the title and spine with overslips reading 1848 to try to keep the book looking fresh to the market (indeed sales were so poor that the 1848 issues were remaindered).

“This binding is unusually successful from a technical point of view” (Maser). #bookbinding by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

The Kelmscott Press edition of Shakespeare’s Poems, 1893. Despite the relatively large edition size of 500 copies, this is one of the rarest books issued by the Press because of the popularity of the text. #kelmscottpress #shakespeare #williammorris by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

Wallace Berman’s wonderful Semina. No.2. Los Angeles: Wallace Berman, 1957. (24) lvs., each w. a mounted letterpress text and illustrations, entirely printed by hand, original wrappers with a photograph by C. BRITTIN mounted on front cover. Provenance: On inner backwrapper: “coverphoto: Chas. Brittin” in red ballpoint.

Wallace Berman’s legendary artist’s magazine. This issue w. contributions by Hermann Hesse, Paul Eluard, Jack Anderson, Michael McClure, Eric Cashen, Charles Bukowski, Paul Valery, David Meltzer, John Altoon (signed print) etc. Semina was published for nine issues, between 1955 to 1964. Exceedingly rare. Clay and Phillips, p.78f: “Its circulation never exceeded a few hundred copies. You could not buy Semina; it was sent to you. Consequently, some claim it as the precursor to ‘mail art.’” #wallaceberman #semina #mailart by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

Cataloguing catalogues. by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

Samuel Morris Steward. Angels on the Bough. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1936. Scarce first edition, first printing of the author’s first novel, review copy with the publisher’s sticker on front pastedown.

Samuel Morris Steward later wrote erotica under the name Phil Andros and counted Gertrude Stein and Alfred Kinsey as his greatest mentors. A pioneer both in gay fiction and as a tattoo artist, Steward lived most of his life in Chicago and San Francisco. ANGELS ON THE BOUGH tells the story of the intertwined lives of a small group of characters in an Ohio college town. Its sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute caused Steward’s dismissal from the State College of Washington where he was teaching English. Review copies – such as this one – started to reach campus in May 1936 (a publication date of May 15 is stamped on the review label) and rumors circled about its distasteful content. Steward telegrammed the publisher James H. Gipson and asked for it not to be sold on campus, but it was too late. Despite strong reviews in the NY Times and elsewhere, Steward was dismissed. Steward and Gipson publicized the university’s dismissal of Steward and after months of investigation the Association of American University Professors reported that Steward had been unjustly let go. Steward quickly found a position at Loyola and an AAUP member commented on the irony: “Apparently our Catholic brethren are much more tolerant than a state institution in Washington.” by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

There’s a wonderful new piece by Francesca Mancino (@lost_modernists) in The Atlantic with quotes by Riverrun’s Tom Lecky, and colleagues @rebecca.romney and @sammyamjay. Link in stories!

@theatlantic by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

The dedication copy of John Masefield’s Victorious Troy or the ‘Hurrying Angel’. London: Heinemann, [1935].

First edition of this novel about a sailing ship damaged in a cyclone and left without a captain or officers. The dedication copy – the copy of a book inscribed by the author to the person identified in the printed dedication page – inscribed to his wife Constance by Masefield beneath the printed dedication (which simply reads “To My Wife”): “For Con from Jan, Nov. 17, 1935.” “Jan” was Masefield’s preferred nickname. #rarebooks #dedicationcopy #johnmasefield by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago

The Edward Tufte copy of: Humphry Repton, John Adey & George Stanley’s Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton. London: T. Bensley for J.C. Stadler, 1808 [plates watermarked 1807]. Folio (518 x 351 mm). 20 plates and illustrations, including an engraved hand-colored plan; 19 aquatints, 9 hand-colored (6 of these with overslips, one with overpage, one double-page, one folding), 2 with sepia wash, all by Stadler after Repton.

First edition. “Repton’s shift in scaling dramatizes the visual consequences of his plans. In the before flap on tip, the Brighton pavilion appears hidden, isolated, distant—impressions intensified by the tiny person and by the over-writing on the shadowy building. When the flap is raised to reveal the proposed redesign, the space between us and the pavilion has now become intimate and comfortable, filled with well dressed visitors... Repton overreached in several other before/after comparisons, exaggerrating the impact of his
proposed improvements. In the plan at left, the design of the flap, the pole-people, and the integrated text are all ingenious and delightful—but the integrity of the work is compromised by persistent visual cheating” (Tufte, Visual Explanations, p.17). #landscapegardening #landscaping #design #humphryrepton #rarebooks #edwardtufte by @riverrunbooks

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2 years ago