On the Shelves in New York
Discover exceptional rare books, manuscripts and works on paper at our Upper East Side gallery. Founded in London in 1969, Peter Harrington opened its New York gallery in 2025, building on longstanding relationships with American collectors. Our specialists would be delighted to welcome you, whether you’re browsing, building a collection or considering selling one to make room on your shelves for something new.
Explore some of our favourite items currently on the gallery’s shelves below, or browse the full collection.
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CLIMATE CHANGE. A collection of books, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera.15th-21st centuries
For much of modern history, climate change was conceived as something remote and geological. From the early 19th century, a series of distinct milestones took place: recognition of the greenhouse effect, laboratory measurements of heat-trapping gases, early calculations of carbon dioxide's climatic influence, and the advent of continuous... Learn More -
LOCKE, John. An Essay concerning Humane Understanding.London : 1690
First edition, first issue, with the Holt imprint. Locke worked for nearly two decades on his investigation of "the certainty and the adequacy of human knowledge" (PMM), and the resulting landmark work influenced many Enlightenment philosophers.
Locke argued that all our knowledge comes from experience and through our senses, rather than... Learn More -
JEFFERYS, Thomas. The American Atlas:London : 1775
First edition of this celebrated atlas, "the chief publication used by English and American officers during the American Revolution" (Karpinski) and "one of the most authoritative and comprehensive atlases of America" (Ristow), with large maps of 11 of the 13 colonies, and of French Canada.
As Geographer to the Prince of Wales, and... Learn More -
SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.London : 1786
Fourth edition of "the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought" (PMM), an uncut and partly unopened copy in a contemporary binding, a reprint of the third edition of 1784 with minor variations.
In his Wealth of Nations, Smith "begins with the thought that labour is the source from which a nation derives what is necessary to... Learn More -
STEDMAN, Charles. The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War.London : 1794
First edition. Stedman's firsthand account of the American War of Independence is "considered the best contemporary account of the Revolution from the British side" (Sabin). The author was a native of Philadelphia and a Loyalist. After the war, he moved to England, where he authored the History. It "remained the standard work on the subject for... Learn More -
ADAMS, John. A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,Philadelphia : 1797
First complete US edition and the first printed during Adams's presidency. A major work of American political philosophy, the treatise forcefully states the principles on which the United States was founded and argues for a mixed constitution with a bicameral legislature and a strong executive.
Adams wrote the work while serving as the... Learn More -
LEWIS, Meriwether, & William Clark. Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean.London : 1814
First British edition, complete with the map. A cornerstone of west coast Americana, it describes the government-backed expedition to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Between 1804 to 1806, Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri to its source, crossing the Rocky Mountains and reaching the Pacific Ocean.
President Thomas... Learn More -
GRIMKÉ, Angelina. Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in reply to an essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A. E. Grimke.Boston : 1838
First edition of the culmination of the fierce epistolary dispute between Grimké and Beecher, among the first works to synthesize abolitionism and feminism and to recognize the affinity of the two causes.
Angelina Emily Grimké (1805-1879) launched her career as an antislavery writer and speaker with two seminal pamphlets: An Appeal to the... Learn More -
JAMES, Henry. Washington Square.London : 1881
First British edition in book form, first impression with the three misnumbered pages in volume II, in the first state of the binding. Only 500 sets were printed, and this copy is in truly exceptional condition.
The British edition was preceded by the American edition by a month. The British edition also included The Pension Beaurepas, not... Learn More -
ANTHONY, Susan B., Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Gage, & Ida Husted Harper. History of Woman Suffrage.Rochester & New York : 1886-1922
A complete set, rare in any configuration, of the "bible" of the women's suffrage campaign; a mixed edition with all but the first two volumes in first edition, the four lifetime volumes in a handsome contemporary calf binding, the last two volumes near-fine in the original cloth and presented by the publishers to the Davenport Library of Bath,... Learn More -
WELLS, H. G. (his copy). The Works of Plato.London : 1900-01
H. G. Wells's reading set, which he drew on closely for his techno-optimistic A Modern Utopia (1905), which in turn inspired E. M. Forster's seminal dystopia, "The Machine Stops", written as a direct response to "the earlier heavens of H. G. Wells". The genesis of modern utopian and dystopian fiction can therefore be traced to Wells's engagement... Learn More -
RACKHAM, Arthur (illus.); GRIMM, Brothers. Grimm's Fairy Tales.London : 1909
Signed limited edition, number 584 of 750 copies signed by the artist. This is a revised and enlarged edition of the work originally published in 1900, with some new illustrations, as well as others redrawn and coloured.
As noted by Rodney Engen, "Rackham greatly loved fairy tales and had collected his many favourites over the years. The... Learn More -
DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor; GARNETT, Constance (trans.). The Novels:London : 1912-20
First editions of Heinemann's entire Novels of Dostoevsky, scarce as a complete run. Several texts appeared in English for the first time in this series, including The Possessed (now typically translated as Demons), The Double and An Honest Thief. Garnett was the gateway to Russian literature for much of the 20th-century anglophone world, and her... Learn More -
FITZGERALD, F. Scott. This Side of Paradise.New York : 1920
Presentation copy of the seventh printing, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to one of the most important figures in his early literary life: "For Shane Leslie, with apologies that this is not the 1st edition, F. Scott Fitzgerald".
An Anglo-Irish author and a cousin of Winston Churchill, Leslie (1885-1971) met Fitzgerald... Learn More -
MELVILLE, Herman. The Works.London : 1922-24
The Standard Edition, number 23 of 750 sets only, signed by the publisher as issued, and rarely encountered in a contemporary binding in such nice condition, given the episodic nature of the publication. The Standard Edition comprises all of Melville's major works, including the first edition of the novella Billy Budd, which was discovered in... Learn More -
HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Three Stories & Ten Poems.Paris : 1923
First edition, sole printing, one of 300 copies of Hemingway's first book; a fragile rarity in stunning condition. "No other writer... stepped so suddenly into fame, or destroyed with such insouciance so many other writers or ways of writing or became such an immediate symbol of an age" (Connolly).
Three Stories & Ten Poems was printed in... Learn More -
MILNE, A. A. When We Were Very Young.London : 1924
First edition, first impression, signed by the author on the title page. This copy is in the second state with the page number "ix" present in the preliminaries.
When We Were Very Young was the first of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, introducing Christopher Robin and Pooh. Milne had no particular ambition to write for children, but in 1922 a... Learn More -
HEMINGWAY, Ernest. in our time.Paris : 1924
First edition, sole printing, review copy with the secretarial presentation inscription on the front free endpaper, "Compliments of the author", and the limitation page stamped "Review Copy" in purple underneath the printed notice that 170 copies were printed on Rives handmade paper. The fragile nature of this production means that copies in such... Learn More -
RUNYON, Damon. Guys and Dolls.New York : 1931
First edition, inscribed by Runyon five days before publication, "To Fred Kelly, who makes good kellys, from Damon Runyon, August 15, 1931".
Fred Kelly was a well-known haberdasher near Times Square. According to their shop boy Martin Rackin, Runyon bought a new hat there every Saturday, and – always a gentleman of the working class –... Learn More -
ULMANN, Doris, & Julia Peterkin. Roll, Jordan, Roll.New York : 1933
First edition of "one of the earliest print documentaries" of African-American life in the South (ANB), number 217 of 350 large paper copies signed by the author and photographer, and containing 20 more images than the trade issue. This copy is accompanied by the additional gravure signed by Ulmann, which although not called for in the colophon,... Learn More
