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James M. Dourgarian, Bookman
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2341 Hickory Drive
Concord, CA 94520
925-349-4400
Established1980 - Member ABAA
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James M.Dourgarian, Bookman, was established in 1980. We are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA). Like all ABAA members, we answer to a higher authority and follow a higher standard of ethics that guarantees a successful transaction for all our customers.
We buy and sell old books, vintage books, collectible books, rare books, first edition books, and related ephemera. We maintain several specialties. Among them are American fiction first editions from c.1900 to the present. Within that general field, we have heavy emphasis in John Steinbeck and Steinbeckiana. Thus, we buy and sell Steinbeck primary first editions in dust jackets, signed/limited editions, his appearances in anthologies, his periodical appearances, books and periodicals about Steinbeck, film and theatre memorabilia, bibliographies, and miscellaneous items.
We also specialize in these same categories for these authors -- Jack London, Wallace Stegner, and Stephen King. Other specialties include Western Americana, books on California and the West, Photography books, books on Japan, China, and the Orient, and Armed Services Editions. The latter are vintage paperbacks issued to American GIs from 1943 to 1947. They are comprised of mysteries, Westerns, science fiction and fantasy, mainstream fiction, historical novels, science, poetry, adventure stories, and more.
Within our field of modern first editions, we also sell related film memorabilia Thus, we sell film posters, lobby card sets, pressbooks, stills, scripts, etc. for films made from the works of authors we carry such as John Steinbeck, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen King, Edward Abbey, Anne Rice, and many others.
| [John Steinbeck] Steinbeck, John. Tortilla Flat. n.p., John Steinbeck, n.d. (1933), first edition. This is a carbon copy of the typescript for Steinbeck's breakthrough book, specially bound by Steinbeck himself for presentation to a close friend, Alice Cohee, in what is now a fairly crummy leather binding, this is No. 2 of only two copies (unknown by me as to whom has No. 1--Carol?) according to a label affixed to the inside front cover "This is one of a first edition of/two copies of which this is #2," the leather binding is labeled Tortilla Flat at the top of the front cover, the middle of the front cover has a leather boxed area that reads "For/John/& Alice/Cohee," the bottom of the front cover reads "John Steinbeck" in what is undoubtedly his hand, top of the rear cover reads "Phalanx," Tortilla Flat is one of several of his books utilizing Steinbeck's "Phalanx Theory" in which group man operates far differently than individual man, there is another spot on the rear cover that appears to read "The old colection (sic) of Doodads," in 1933 Steinbeck had published three books, none of them successful, and he was failing at finding a publisher for his fourth, Tortilla Flat, in the end it was Alice Cohee, a close friend, who urged Steinbeck to try one more time, this time Covici Friede took the book, launching his successful career, according to Susan Shillinglaw's Carol and John Steinbeck Portrait of a Marriage (page 126), Alice was presented with the manuscript, this is that manuscript (which in reality is a carbon copy of the typescript), according to a professional appraisal obtained by the Cohee family, "the typescript is a relatively late version of the text and includes the preface in its final form but does not include the chapters headings added after conversations with Elizabeth Otis and Pat Covici," there are a few holographic corrections in an unknown hand (possibly his wife/typist, Carol) "and few differences from the published text," according to the appraisal, interestingly, Steinbeck used one ribbon-typed page from another manuscript leaf to type the Tortilla Flat page, that manuscript was Dissonant Symphony which was never published and which Steinbeck destroyed, according to his biographer, Jack Benson, it is very likely that this one page is the only survivor of that book that never was, Alice Cohee and her husband John were also close friends with Ed Ricketts, he corresponded with them periodically, according to Katharine A. Rodger's Renaissance Man of Cannery Row The Life and Letters of Edward F. Ricketts, according to a family appraisal, the binding was probably used by Steinbeck for other purposes before he used it to bind the typescript, the binding is a folio-sized ledger book, the typescript was drilled or stabbed twice with two wing clamps inserted through the entire typescript, unique, rare. Front cover available, but detached. JD 36893 |  $75,000.00 |
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