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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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Click on the shopping basket by a item to create an email for us to contact you about ordering that item. You may also call 1 (925) 349-4400 to talk to Jim and place a phone order with Visa, Mastercard, or Discover. You may also arrange to pay by check. Click on the link below to email a general inquiry.
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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. Typed Letter Signed. NY, John Steinbeck, n.d., first edition. Steinbeck writes to Alice Cohee, a long-time friend and key figure in his literary career, in 1933 she urged him to try one more time to place Tortilla Flat at which he had previously failed, at that time he had three books published, none of which were successful, he tried again after following her advice, Covici Freide took the book which then launched his Nobel Prize-winning career, he then gifted her a specially bound copy of Tortilla Flat, one of only two copies, in this three-page, 141-line letter written on his NY letterhead he writes about his health, he mentions Ed Ricketts and Pacal Cobvici, he talks about The Wayward Bus, and while he doesn't mention it by name, writes about East of Eden, Steinbeck reports that he had been in the hospital for a week for removal of leg varicosities, he writes that "the stitches are still in and I am sleeping at my office which is a hotel room at the above address because I can't walk up any stairs for another couple of weeks and here I have an elevator. It is a fine office with ivy and a jar of guppies and I mostly spend about nine hours a day in it. And it is a nice place of quiet where I can work pretty well and damn well have to," he reports that doctors are running tests to see if there is anything wrong with him, undoubtedly because he is about to begin work on East of Eden, "I have finally come to my work and it is going to be a long one that requires not only a great amount of time but of energy and I wanted to see whether U+I could do it or not. Everything else has been practice for this and I think that finally I am ready to start it and if started I want to finish it," he reports that he has lost weight and that it and ensuring his physical fitness are part of his preparedness for writing his book, he also writes "I'm going to do the Outer Shore book with Ed and then I will be entirely ready for this and the turning over of the rocks will harden me for the job," he also discusses her breaking up with her husband, John, and her reaction to his The Wayward Bus, "The characters in the bus were not fully realized because they were not intended to be characters at all in the usual sense of the word," he goes on to write about his children, "I didn't think I would have any children. I am fascinated with my children and I am probably a very bad father to them. I don't know what being a good father would be. I like them very much even love them very much but I have not learned enough to act wisely, to anticipate future neuroses of which I may be the cause," signed by him as "John," this letter was not recorded in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Folded for mailing with some strike outs and one hand correction. JD 36965 |  $6,500.00 |
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