Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
The Harpe's head : a legend of Kentucky
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Rare Books
Carlyle, Swinburne, John Stuart Mill, Rossetti, Whistler, Lewis Carol and and other characters come vividly to life in this extraordinary novel. Set along the Thames, in Chelsea, this is a glorious re-creation, based on historical fact, of the private and working lives of many of the 19h century's greatest writers and artists.
608504
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Rare Books
"This is the mystery novel that started it all: The gruesome legend about the 'demon barber of Fleet Street.' Many people still believe that Sweeney Todd and his aide, the pie-backing Mrs Lovett next door, were real people living at the turn of the century 1800, the time period in which the story is set, but 'The String of Pearls' is in fact pure fantasy, based on a French myth which has been traced down to the 17th century, 'The bloody legend about the barber and the patissier.' The earliest known version of this myth can be found in a book from 1612, written by the priest Jacques du Breul. However, 'The String of Pearls' is a very thrilling and suspensful story in its own right"--back cover.
653906
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Manuscripts
The collection is comprised primarily of the manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and ephemera of Paul Theroux. His works are often semi-autobiographical and are based on his experiences living and traveling around the world. He is noted for his rich, sometimes ironic, description of people and places. The material comprises almost his entire career as a writer and includes multiple drafts of various works from working notebooks to printed galleys. The collection includes novels (1967-2016), short story collections (1972-2014), non-fiction and travel books (1972-2016), and shorter works including reviews, articles, short stories, plays, and lectures (1960-2015); the collection also includes Theroux's working and travel notebooks (1968-2014). The collection also contains professional papers and business correspondence (1963-2015), with publishers, agents, other authors and reader's letters; included in this material are letters from, among others, Eve Auchincloss, Peter De Vries, Margaret Drabble, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Blanche C. Gregory, Hamish Hamilton Ltd., Houghton Mifflin Company, V.S. Naipaul, Jonathan Raban, Oliver Sacks, Muriel Spark, Stephen Spender, William Styron, and Auberon Waugh. There is also a smaller amount of family material and personal correspondence (1939-2015), with family and friends; this correspondence includes Eugene Theroux, Alexander Theroux, Peter Theroux, Marcel Theroux, Louis Theroux, Anne Theroux, and various other family members. The ephemera consists of photographs, printed material and magazines (1941-1915).
mssTheroux
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Rare Books
Jilly Farina is fourteen, but so small that she wears younger kids' clothes. Her father is drunk on the day of the Barnstable County Fair, so she goes by herself, and by that night her life has been transformed. When she walks into a tent to see Millroy the Magician, his eyes lighten from brown to green and fasten upon her. He performs miracles in front of Jilly's spellbound eyes and tells her he wants to eat her. He spirits her into his trailer, and for the first time in her forlorn young life, Jilly feels safe. He tells her that he has command over nine bodily functions, that he will train her to be his assistant, and that he will give her a sequined costume. But this is only the beginning. Millroy is a man like no other, a magician not simply of mere conjuring, but of true, baffling magic. He is a healer, too, a vegetarian and health fanatic with a mission to change the eating habits of his beloved United States. In search of the perfect platform, he finds it in television as an evangelical preacher, touting hygiene and the simple pure foods mentioned in the Bible. From fairground magician to cult leader, Millroy is unstoppable. In his portrait of a man who is part genius, part eccentric, and part miracle worker, and of his complete and uneasy relationship with young Jilly, Paul Theroux has created a remarkable parable of America today. A work of breathtaking imagination and resonance, Millroy the Magician displays the author at the height of his fictional powers, and in Jilly and Millroy he has created two truly unforgettable characters.
646365
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Rare Books
Jilly Farina is fourteen, but so small that she wears younger kids' clothes. Her father is drunk on the day of the Barnstable County Fair, so she goes by herself, and by that night her life has been transformed. When she walks into a tent to see Millroy the Magician, his eyes lighten from brown to green and fasten upon her. He performs miracles in front of Jilly's spellbound eyes and tells her he wants to eat her. He spirits her into his trailer, and for the first time in her forlorn young life, Jilly feels safe. He tells her that he has command over nine bodily functions, that he will train her to be his assistant, and that he will give her a sequined costume, but this is only the beginning. Millroy is a man like no other, a magician not simply of mere conjuring, but of true, baffling magic. He is a healer, too, a vegetarian and health fanatic with a mission to change the eating habits of his beloved United States. In search of the perfect platform, he finds it in television as an evangelical preacher, touting hygiene and the simple pure foods mentioned in the Bible. From fairground magician to cult leader, Millroy is unstoppable. In his portrait of a man who is part genius, part eccentric, and part miracle worker, and of his complete and uneasy relationship with young Jilly, Paul Theroux has created a remarkable parable of America today. A work of breathtaking imagination and resonance, Millroy the Magician displays the author at the height of his fictional powers, and in Jilly and Millroy he has created two truly unforgettable characters.
647093
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Manuscripts
This collection consists of an autograph album containing handwritten notes, letters, poems, and drawings by approximately 200 friends and acquaintances of American author Charles Warren Stoddard, including leading American literary figures, journalists, poets, critics, politicians, and actors of the late 19th century. Among the many notable contributors are Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte, and Joaquin Miller. The earliest item in the book is an 1863 dedication by Thomas Starr King, and continues with contributions primarily from members of San Francisco literary society beginning in the mid-to-late 1860s through the late 1890s, as well as from friends in other locales where Stoddard lived or traveled including Louisville, Kentucky; Washington, D.C.; Massachusetts; New York; and Hawaii. A letter from L.C. Bayles (page 23) introduces lines of verse with the note "in accordance with your request," reflecting Stoddard's curation of the album as a compendium of verse and personal sentiments tailored towards friendships and literary musings. The volume includes two photographs of groups of men and women, captioned, "Riverdale, N.Y., July 4th 1890" (page 116). There are manuscript poems and lines of verse, often penned specifically for Stoddard, from literary friends including Isaac Hull Adams; Daniel Dulany Addison; Benjamin Parke Avery; William Barry; Fred Buel; James F. Bowman; George Burrows; Carrie Carlton; Bliss Carman; Pierre Cauwet; Robert W. Chambers; Sarah M. Clarke; Ada Clare; Katherine E. Conway; Ina D. Coolbrith; R.M. Daggett; Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren; Malcolm Douglas; Theodore F. Dwight; Eugene Field; Hamlin Garland; Grace Greenwood; Bret Harte; Jerome Hart; John Hay; Charles Hinton; Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.; William Dean Howells; Daniel E. Hudson; Thomas A. Janvier; Tremenheere Johns; Ralph Keeler; George Kennan; Orpheus C. Kerr; Alice Kingsbury (Cooley); Rudyard Kipling; Emilie Lawson; James Linen; Fitz Hugh Ludlow; Adah Isaacs Menken; John Malone; Joaquin Miller; Morton Mitchell and Laddie Mitchell; James Whitcomb Riley; James Jeffrey Roche; Edgar Saltus; Richard Henry Savage; Emma D.E.N. Southworth; Frank Soulé; Bella Z. Spencer; Horatio Stebbins; Maria Longworth Storer (with sketches); J.D. Strong; M.D. Strong; H.A. Stuart; T.R. Sullivan; Bayard Taylor; Charles Wadsworth; Charles Henry Webb; May Wentworth; George Edward Woodberry; and R.C. Wyllie. Prose and letters from L.C. Bayles; Frederick Billings; Ezra S. Carr and his wife, Jeanne C. Smith Carr; Samuel Clemens; Laura Cuppy; G.B. Densmore; Annie Fields; Archibald C. Gunter; Francis King Harte; Louise E. Holden; Jules Luquiens; C.T.H. Palmer; Theodore Roosevelt; Anna Josephin Savage; Rodney L. Tabor; Charles A. Wetmore; Virgil M. Williams; and Thérèse Yelverton. Drawings include ones by Reginald B. Birch; John S. Bugbee; Arthur Lemon; G. Thomas; and Theodore Wores. There are also brief notes and/or signatures of individuals including Charles Francis Adams; Henry Adams; Frances Hodgson Burnett; Ada, Dyas; Louise Imogen Guiney; Iza Duffus Hardy; Clarence King; Francis D. Millet; Thomas Nelson Page; Theodore Roosevelt; Charles Dudley Warner; and Lydia Woodworth. The contents are handwritten on blank pages in an "Album" published by Leavitt & Allen, consisting of 241 pages including an engraved title page and frontispiece and [8] other engraved plates with illustrations by Creswick, W.H. Bartlett, W. Tombleson; J. Smillie and T. Addison Richards; engravings by J. Sartain; J. Bannister; Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie; J. White; and C.T. Giles. Edges gilt.
mssHM 35075