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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.
New Arrivals -Recent Books Aquired
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. Autograph Letter Signed. n.d. (Pacific Grove), John Steinbeck, n.d. (March 1949), first edition. Steinbeck writes 30 lines on his usual long yellow ruled paper 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, previous attempts fell flat, 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, he refuses her possible visit to him in his Pacific Grove cottage because of his heavy writing schedule, "I had your letter and am answering immediately because you say you are driving up here [from Laguna Beach] on Thursday. I have not been out of the house in a month. In that time I have seen no one. I have three weeks more of work. And I will not in that time, I will not seen any one. That sounds very gruff but I have set myself a deadline and I am going to make it and if I have to be pure son of a bitch to get it done then that is what I have to be," he continues with his very frank communication with his long-time friend, he goes on, "You insist on saying I am angry with you. I am not. I get a little impatient when you carry on dialogues with yourself," adding "You have no more compulsion to honesty than anyone else. Everybody is that way. You just use more words for it and try to find authority in books," he adds, trying to back up his reclusive behavior, "This is the first letter I have answered in a month. I should be free of this work some time around the fifteenth of April but until then I will go on the way I am," signed as John, this letter was not recorded in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, housed in its original mailing envelope addressed by Steinbeck. Letter is a bit wrinkled, folded for mailing, envelope is torn open, else very good. JD 36979 |  $3,500.00 |
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