Red Fox Rare Books

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Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, (1983). First edition, 1st printing. number 39 of 400 copies. 8vo. 221 pp. Original cream paper boards over navy corduroy cloth, spine label text in black in original, clear acetate dust-jacket. Acetate jacket shows wear with surface scratches to gloss, rubbing, fading. Book is tight, square and firm with a light forward lean. A few surface scratches and divots, panel edges with a few nicks. Slight toning to panel and page edges. Page edges a touch smudged. Interior clean and unmarked. Boldly signed by the author, with doodle of man (“jugman”) and beer bottle in black pen on the rear colophon page.

Dust Jacket: Good

Hardcover: Very Good

“The collection deals largely with drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski’s minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre. The punk rock band Hot Water Music is named after the collection. With his characteristic raw and minimalist style, Charles Bukowski takes us on a walk through his side of town in Hot Water Music . He gives us little vignettes of depravity and lasciviousness, bite sized pieces of what is both beautiful and grotesque. The stories in Hot Water Music dash around the worst parts of town - a motel room stinking of sick, a decrepit apartment housing a perpetually arguing couple, a bar tended by a skeleton - and depict the darkest parts of human existence. Bukowski talks simply and profoundly about the underbelly of the working class without raising judgement. In the way he writes about s*x, relationships, writing, and inebriation, Bukowski sets the bar for irreverent art - his work inhabits the basest part of the mind and the most extreme absurdity of the everyday.”
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New York: Viking, (1959). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 246 pp. Original quarter yellow cloth over teal cloth-covered boards, stamped in black, in original unclipped ($3.95) dust-jacket. Mild edge wear, particular to spine ends and corners, with a few small tears and chips to spine ends. Nicks, handling and shelf wear commensurate with use. Protected in archival mylar. Book is tight, square and firm. Small smudge spot to spine cloth. Top stain still mostly vibrant - with a previous marked price (of 10c in marker). Light curling to spine ends. Interior is clean and unmarked. Perhaps near fine, overall and a wonderful, collector’s copy.

Dust Jacket: Near Fine

Hardcover: Near Fine

“A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, it has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series. Jackson’s novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion in the reader, using complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters’ psyches. The author decided to write “a ghost story” after reading about a group of nineteenth century “psychic researchers” who studied a house and somberly reported their supposedly scientific findings to the Society for Psychic Research. What Jackson discovered in their “dry reports was not the story of a haunted house, it was the story of several earnest, I believe misguided, certainly determined people, with their differing motivations and background.”
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London: Macdonald (1969). First edition (U.K.), 1st impression. 8vo. 254 pp. Original blue paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt, in original unclipped (£1.25) (25s) dust-jacket. Jacket shows light handling wear. A few light nicks and handling wear. Trivial spine fade. Indentation, scratch to jacket spine. Book is tight, square and firm, with trivial lean. Light tanning to panel edges and spine, page edges a bit smudged and tanned. Small indentation consisting with that of jacket spine. Presents well, a nice vintage copy.

Dust Jacket: Very Good

Hardcover: Very Good

“First published in 1968 and set in his Known Space universe, the novel was originally serialized as Slowboat Cargo. A Gift from Earth is a segment of Larry Niven’s Known Space series, a group of loosely connected novels and short stories, most from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. The series portrays the first centuries of human interstellar exploration and settlement, along with attendant encounters with various alien races. Algis Budrys praised the novel as “an example of the best currently available technologically oriented SF,” but faulted the lack of balance between Niven’s social commentary and his storytelling.”
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New York: Kodansha International, (1991). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 400 pp. Original quarter black cloth under magenta paper-covered boards, stamped in silver, in original price-clipped ($21.95) dust-jacket. Trivial edge wear, shelf and handling wear particular to corners and edges. Small horizontal scratch to jacket front panel. A few dimples to jacket. Protected in archival mylar. Book is moderately tight and square. Faint lean. Light shelf and handling wear. Interior clean and unmarked. A few bumps to panel edges and corners. Page edges a touch dusty. A clean copy of this first edition.

Dust Jacket: Very Good

Hardcover: Very Good

“A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two narratives—“Hard-Boiled Wonderland” (the cyberpunk, science fiction part) and “The End of the World” (the surreal, virtual fantasy part). Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 1985. The End of the World narrative was one of the inspirations for Yosh*toshi Abe’s Haibane Renmei, originally produced as a manga and later adapted as an anime series.”
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New York: Delacorte (1969). First edition, 2nd printing. 8vo. 186 pp. Original turquoise cloth-covered boards, stamped in gold, black, red, in original unclipped ($5.95) dust-jacket. Jacket shows light handling wear. Light tanning to edges, spine. Edge wear and corner wear, chips and small tears to spine crown and foot. Small soil spot to bottom front right panel. Book is tight, square and firm, with trivial. Light tanning to panel edges and spine, a few specks to page edges, bottom corners lightly bumped. Very faint trace soiling to bottom panel edge and a spot to the rear board. Presents well, a nice vintage copy.

Dust Jacket: Very Good

Hardcover: Very Good

“Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain’s assistant during World War II, to the post-war years. It was Vonnegut’s first novel to become a bestseller, staying on the New York Times bestseller list for sixteen weeks and peaking at No. 4. In 1970, Slaughterhouse-Five was nominated for best-novel Nebula and Hugo Awards. It lost both to The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. It has since been widely regarded as a classic anti-war novel, and has appeared in Time magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.”
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

New York: Random House, (1972). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 204 pp. Original octavo black cloth over charcoal paper-covered embossed boards, stamped in silver, in original unclipped ($5.95) dust-jacket. Light curling to spine ends. Faint fading to spine. Mild shelf and handling wear consistent, creases to flaps. Soiling to top and bottom jacket. Protected in archival mylar. Book is tight, firm with mildly cocked spine. Light wear to edges with typical fading to panel edges. Small scratch to front panel, a few nicks to panel edges. Page edges with smudges and mild foxing, vintage toning. Light curling to spine ends. Interior is clean and unmarked.

Dust Jacket: Good

Hardcover: Good

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement. The work is Thompson’s most famous book, and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illicit drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. Thompson’s highly subjective blend of fact and fiction, which it popularized, became known as gonzo journalism. Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 before being published in book form in 1972. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively.”
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New York: Harper & Row (1956). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 302 pp. Original crimson red cloth covered boards in half navy cloth, stamped in gold, in original unclipped ($6.00) dust-jacket. Consistent edge wear, a horizontal scratch to front panel. Color loss at spine foot. Some chipping, tears and light loss at edges - particular to spine ends and tips, corners. Protected in archival mylar. Book is tight, square and firm. Light handling wear present. Light horizontal scratch consistent with that of the jacket across front panel. A few marks and smudges to panels. Interior is clean and unmarked.

Dust Jacket: Good

Hardcover: Very Good

“A classic, ribald tale of nineteenth-century life. Perhaps the best written account of a soldier’s adventures and misadventures in the Mexican War and its aftermath, this unexpurgated edition is now available for the first time, complete with over 150 of Chamberlain’s wonderful textual illustrations reproduced in full color. If you enjoyed the Chamberlain paintings assembled in Sam Chamberlain’s Mexican War:The San Jacinto Museum of History Paintings, you will be fascinated by the tale in My Confession that goes with it and beyond it into Chamberlain’s adventures with the scalp-hunting Glanton Gang (the story that Cormac McCarthy used as the basis for his celebrated novel Blood Meridian).”
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New York: Summit Books, (1979). First edition, 1st printing. 8vo. 602 pp. Original black boards over quarter black cloth, stamped in white, in original unclipped ($14.95) dust-jacket. Mild edge wear, particular to spine ends, corners, tips. Handling and shelf wear, with rubbing, surface nicks and light wrinkles, light toning, creases to flaps. Protected in archival mylar. Book is moderately tight, square and firm. Mild handling, shelf wear present to panels. Page edges with some smudges and dustiness to top text block. Light curling to spine ends, rubbing to corners, top corners bumped, pulling to spine crown. Interior clean and unmarked.

Dust Jacket: Very Good
Hardcover: Very Good

“A roughly 600-page collection of Thompson’s essays from 1956 to the end of the 1970s, including the rise of the author’s own gonzo journalism style as he moved from Air Force and sports beat writing to straight-ahead political commentary. It is the first of what would become four volumes in The Gonzo Papers series. Personalities depicted by the author as cavorting about with him include his illustrator and friend Ralph Steadman, Chicano lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta, Jean-Claude Killy, and then-football player O. J. Simpson. Political figures appearing prominently in the collection include former U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.”
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