Kennedy, John F.

Washington DC: 1962. Washington DC: 1962. Single leaf, folded once; loosely inserted together with other items in spiral bound album. Fine. Item #205426

Kennedy writes to express his personal thanks to a federal Border Patrol officer pressed into service at the University of Mississippi to provide protection when James Meredith was registered as the first African American student there. Meredith's enrollment at Ole Miss was vehemently opposed by Mississippi governor Ross Barnett and his cohort of segregationists as well as violent white racists among the student body. When Meredith was escorted onto the Oxford, Miss. campus by national guard troops, tensions grew rapidly and, when the national guard units withdrew, quickly escalated into a full-scale riot resulting in two deaths and numerous serious injuries. Scrambling to address the unfolding situation from the White House, the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, worked the phones constantly and ultimately had to send regular army units to Ole Miss to protect Meredith. In this letter, the president addressed Maurice Cruickshank, a Border Patrol Inspector from Buffalo, New York, who was sent to Mississippi along with several members of his unit, saying in part: "Your actions that difficult night were in the highest traditions of the dedicated men and women who serve in law enforcement. The courage and dedication which you demonstrated while in great personal danger prevented a serious and tragic incident from becoming a disaster for our country. Had you failed, our country would have suffered irreparable damage. . ." Ever mindful of history and symbolism, Kennedy knew that the coincidence of his presidency with the hundredth anniversary of the emancipation proclamation held special significance, especially in the face of the intensifying pressure being applied to him by the growing civil rights movement. At the time of Meredith's enrollment at Ole Miss, Kennedy was walking a fine line between the accommodating Martin Luther King, Jr. and his fellow civil rights activists while striving to maintain his political support among southern Democrats. The Mississippi riot and Kennedy's forceful response to it marked a turning point in the young president's approach to civil rights, as his hesitancy gave way to a fuller embrace of the movement. In June of the following year he would call for major new omnibus civil rights legislation. Although the civil rights bill was not passed prior to Kennedy's assassination, it became a key piece of his legacy implemented by his successor Lyndon B. Johnson. Officer Cruickshank preserved the letter in an album of memorabilia, along with another letter from AG Robert F. Kennedy (signed with autopen) from two weeks later, similarly thanking him for his role in the disturbance, a 1965 Christmas card from LBJ's AG Nicholas Katzenbach, a number of related newspaper clippings and later correspondence from Justice Department officials, as well as a matchbook cover from the Ole Miss Motel in Oxford, where presumably he had been billeted. One interesting detail: the RFK letter was sent in a franked envelope from the Department of Justice, while the envelope for the JFK letter bears an adhesive postage stamp honoring the Mercury Space Program. The stamp, newly issued in 1962, was developed in secrecy and issued simultaneously with the event it commemorated, namely John Glenn's historic flight into orbit and safe return in February of that year. Letters signed by Kennedy during his brief presidency are of course highly prized; JFK letters concerning civil rights matters are truly rare. This is an excellent letter with genuinely historic content marking a signal event in the Kennedy presidency. Price: $25,000.00

Levitt, Helen

New York. New York. 23 original gelatin silver prints, with four autograph postcards singed (one is also a Levitt photograph) and an inscribed publication of the Museum of Modern Art (1985); various sizes and formats. One print wrinkled; two have been mounted on stiff board; another mounted on stiff paper backing; one print with remnants of glue on verso from having once been mounted; corners of a pair of prints with tiny abrasions where they were once taped. Item #205446

An excellent collection of photos, five of them signed by Levitt on their versos, and others with neat pencil annotations in her hand, and one with her studio stamp. From the collection of Edna Ocko Meyers and her husband Sidney Meyers (1906-1969), who were close friends and sometime collaborators with Levitt. A multitalented polymath, Sidney Meyers is best known as a film editor and director. His 1949 documentary "The Quiet One", which was nominated for an academy award, was done together with screenwriter James Agee and Levitt as cinematographer. Levitt remained on close terms with Meyers and his wife and was a frequent guest at their upper west side Manhattan apartment. The photographs were most likely printed by Levitt between the 1960s and 1980s. The images range from some very well known pieces from her major publication (also with Agee) A Way of Seeing, focusing on Harlem street life, as well as some her of her Mexico work. Three of the photos are exhibition prints on 11 X 14 inch sheets, signed and dated by Levitt on the backs; others are smaller format, some being informal working prints. The postcards were written, signed and mailed by Levitt to Edna Meyers as well her son Nick; the MoMA ephemeron is a schedule from the museum's film department that included screenings of "The Quiet One" as well as Meyers's groundbreaking 1961 film "The Savage Eye", which Levitt also worked on. An outstanding collection.

Bradbury, Ray

(Los Angeles): 1949. (Los Angeles): 1949. Tempera on cardstock paper, approx. 10 X 14 in. Wear to edges; some flaking of the surface. Item #205718

Nighttime cityscape depicting images of Los Angeles, with the central image of a streetcar filled with passengers and all around lighted signs (Bond Pants, Follies, Tivoli Theatre, Beer, Parking, Wine, Ice) a lamppost, a telephone booth, and a leafy tree. Signed "R. Bradbury - July, 1949" at the bottom. In a 2009 interview with the LA Times, Bradbury recalled his early exposure to art and stated that "painting has been part of my life since I was a child . . . My artwork doesn't inspire my writing, it's my writing that inspires my artwork." The streetcar figures in some of Bradbury's stories, including "The Trolley" in the collection Dandelion Wine. Given the date, however, it is conceivable that this image may have been inspired by a 1947 story Bradbury published in the New Yorker, in which a Mexican immigrant is forced to leave his adopted home of Los Angeles: "On many nights he had walked the silent streets and seen the bright clothes in the windows and bought some of them, and he had seen the jewels and bought some of them for his few lady friends. And he had gone to picture shows five nights a week for a while. Then, also, he had ridden the streetcars—all night some nights—smelling the electricity, his dark eyes moving over the advertisements, feeling the wheels rumble under him, watching the little sleeping houses and big hotels slip by." (Provenance: the estate of LA musician, composer, and longtime UCLA faculty member Theodore Norman, who was given the painting by Bradbury). Price: $15,000.00

[Sterne, Laurence]

London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1768. London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1768. First Edition. Two vols., small 8vos; xx + 203, [ii] + 208pp, with both half titles and subscriber's list; edges trimmed and speckled; later three-quarter calf with gilt spines and black and red labels, by Bayntun. A professionally mended tear across one leaf in the second volume;. Item #205733

A bright, crisp, and handsome set of Sterne's second, and last, novel, published the year prior to his death. Sterne based the book upon his own experiences, albeit filtered through the persona of Mr. Yorick, a character he had created earlier in Tristram Shandy. Price: $3,500.00

Radcliffe, Ann

London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794. London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794. First Edition. 4 vols; 8vos, 428, 478, 463, 428pp; contemporary calf gilt with red leather spine labels. Occasional creasing and nicks to page edges; hinges tender - front covers of second and fourth volumes detached - calf bindings rubbed. Item #205731

A nice, compete set of the first edition with all half title pages present. Housed in an unusual four-compartment felt-lined wooden slipcase. A classic of Gothic fiction. Price: $6,000.00