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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. Autograph Letter Signed. Los Gatos, John Steinbeck, n.d. (May 1938), first edition. Steinbeck writes 49 lines (plus a P.S.) on two pages of yellow unruled paper to life-long 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 writes of the "mystery" of whom painted a recently-received painting, it was her, 'For it is only within the last two weeks that the mystery of the picture has been cleared up. It arrived months ago. We didn't think we knew any one who could paint so well besides [unknown]. We'd never seen either a water color or a landscape of yours. And we didn't think anyone who would paint so well would not sign a picture. A letter to the art store was unanswered. Then two weeks ago Boynton suggested tearing off the backing and we did and there was your name," he goes on, "We grow fonder and fonder of the picture and we're so darned proud and glad that painted it. Look! when I was a little kid I used to ride the pony into those hills. It doesn't matter geographically, they were the same. Maybe it was sexual, but I wanted to stroke such hills. The one in the foreground had a cave on the back side of it. Once we found a case of dynamite in the cave and we took it away and buried it and I'll bet it is still buried there. It was no small thing for us little bastards to have a private case of dynamite. Never did know who owned it," he reports that he spent the spring working and that Carol did the gardening, he goes on "I've been out in the fields a good deal too - very terrible. Makes you ashamed to eat when it doesn't make you murderous. If it were just accidental one could be only sorry but it is planned cruelty, carefully projected and carried out. Have to avoid feelings of old fashioned I.W.W. direct action," he of course refers to the state of migrant workers in California as he researched and wrote and prepared to write his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, he also mentions his best friend, the famed marine biologist Ed Ricketts, "Ed hasn't been up for some time. He is working very hard to keep his business going, and I guess the pressures are very great," housed in its original mailing envelope addressed by Steinbeck, this letter was not recorded in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Folded for mailing, else fine in its torn open envelope. JD 36980 |  $5,500.00 |
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