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James M. Dourgarian, Bookman
New address/phone
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. Palisades, NY, John Steinbeck, April 28 (1942), first edition. One sheet, a total of 52, signed by Steinbeck with his typed name, to long-time friend and key figure in his literary career, Alice Cohee, in 1933 she urged him to try one more time to place Tortilla Flat at which he had failed previously, at that time he had three books published, none of which were successful, he did try 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 letter he writes about Ed Ricketts, famed marine biologist and Steinbeck's best friend who often appears as a character in Steinbeck's books, World War II, Monterey, and his health, he writes, "Ed did forward your letter. I haven't been in California since last September and I don't read the papers so I never know what I am doing. Actually I'm working very hard in the information office, doing part of two european broadcasts and since yesterday a third and seven days a week. I live in a small stone house on the Hudson and it is comfortable and pleasant and right now the dogwood is coming out," he adds, "I don't go out very often. There are woods all about here and I walk in them and get much the same fine feeling I used to on that road through the pines to the dunes. But the river isn't the ocean and I wish I were back by the ocean. That is impossible of course. Like every one else I'm kind of put my own confusions and problems off on the whipping horse that the war must be won and am trying to help with that in any way that is suggested," later he writes "When I can, I'll go back to California and settle around Monterey if I can. I like it better there than any place in the world," he goes on, "Ed and I had so much fun working together," probably referring to Sea of Cortez, adding "We planned to do a lot more of it and maybe we will when the war is over. That was a very good life. This isn't any life at all, it's just waiting," this letter was not included in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Folded for mailing in its mailing envelope. JD 36966 |  $3,500.00 |
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