Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - March - 2007 Issue

More Celebrity and Other Books from James Pepper Rare Books

Warner Baxter played Jay Gatsby in the original film version of The Great Gatsby.

Warner Baxter played Jay Gatsby in the original film version of The Great Gatsby.


Robert Benchley was quite prescient in his inscription in this 1921 first edition of his first work, Of All Things. In this February 9, 1945, inscription to "Ed," Benchley writes, "You will see how valuable this first edition of my very first book is when I tell you that it originally sold for two bucks. Hang onto it, boy, and in another ten years sell, for God's sake, before it gets you in the red." Actually, the latter part of the inscription, to sell in ten years, was not such good advice. If Ed hung on until the present, he could have offered the book for $2,500 (of course if Ed was a contemporary of Benchley, he would be 118-years-old now and probably couldn't have much fun with the money).

Here is an item to set collectors of L. Frank Baum, creator of the wonderful Wizard of Oz, to dreaming. It is Catalogue 11 from Los Angeles bookseller Peggy Christian, released in 1974. It offered a collection of Baum items that had come from his family. In 1974, you could purchase Baum's personal scrapbooks, including one kept for the publication of the "Wizard," for $150 each. There was also a manuscript for a musical version of the "Wizard." $30.

James Pepper Rare Books may be found online at www. Jamespepperbooks.com, telephone 805-963-1025.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Leland Little, Jan. 22: The First Issue of Robert Frost's A Boy's Will, In Extremely Scarce Binding.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Knight's An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: First Edition of Locke's Important Treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: The Richly Illustrated First French Edition of Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Scarce First Issue of An Account of the Province of Carolina in America, Finely Bound and With Celebrated John Speed Map.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Humphrey's An Historical Account, Complete with Scarce Folding Maps.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: First Edition of Chamberlain's Scarce Civil War Memoir The Passing of the Armies.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: A Rare Photograph of David Bruce Brown and #48 Fiat.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: George Cruikshank (England, 1792-1878), Archive of Sketches, Notes, and Letters.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Extremely Scarce Copy of Die Samländische Ode (The Samland Ode), Signed by Max Pechstein.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Andy Warhol's The Thirteen Most Wanted Men Exhibition Catalogue.
    Leland Little, Jan. 22: Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937), Every Building on the Sunset Strip.
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