Alice’s Adventures Underground
London: Macmillan, 1886. First Edition. Hardcover. 1st edition of the replication of Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with his original title, his own 37 illustrations, and reproducing his own handwriting. This edition differs from the published book in that Macmillan had Carroll change the title, delete a few personal references, and add 2 chapters, and they hired a professional illustrator, but our book is the original. Presentation copy from the author to the publisher, inscribed (to Emma Macmillan), “Mrs. Macmillan from the author” and dated in January, the month that all the earliest presentation copies were inscribed. A bright and beautiful copy, near fine in original cloth. Best copy in the world? Probably. Fine. Item #917
Pearl Buck was born in West Virginia in 1892 but her missionary parents took her to China when she was just a few months old. She came home for college at Randolph–Macon, returned to China in 1914, taught for 10 years in Nanking, then revisited the U. S. in 1924 to earn a master’s degree at Cornell. Once back in China, she wrote The Good Earth. It won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, The William Dean Howells medal in 1935, and her Nobel Prize for literature in 1938. It remains her masterpiece, a bittersweet social chronicle written with a detached, pastoral style, set in northern China during the early years of the 20th century, and following the cycles of birth, marriage, and death in the Chinese family of Wang Lung. The good years of plentiful harvest and healthy children are balanced by times of near starvation and stillborn pregnancy. Wang Lung finally becomes wealthy but his grown sons, for whom he has worked so hard, have no respect for their father's love of the land, and only scheme to sell his property as soon as he dies.
Price: $18,500.00