Biography and Autobiography
Rare Biography & Autobiography Books for Sale Online
If you are looking for rare or first edition biography or autobiography books look no further than Raptis Rare Books. Browse through our entire collection of rare biographies and autobiographies below, view details about individual books and contact us to ask a question or find out more information.
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"One of the most fascinating regiments in American military history": Rough Rider Sergeant Craig W. Wadsworth's personal collection of Rough Riders books, letters and photographs; with a first edition of The Rough Riders and typed letter signed by President Theodore Roosevelt
ROOSEVELT, Theodore and Craig W. Wadsworth.
Theodore Roosevelt and Craig W. Wadsworth Rough Riders Collection.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899.
Craig Wharton Wadsworth's personal collection of books, letters and photographs from his time as a Sergeant in Roosevelt's Rough Riders cavalry. The collection includes a first edition of Roosevelt's best-selling work, The Rough Riders (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899) signed by Roosevelt, "Theodore Roosevelt" and Wadsworth, "Craig W. Wadsworth Sergeant-Troop K"; Wadsworth's 14-leaf photograph album bound in full pebbled leather with gilt titles to the front panel which read: "First United States Volunteer Cavalry (Roosevelt Rough Riders) 1898" containing 24 original photographs of the cavalrymen on their expedition to Daiquiri with annotations in Wadsworth's hand and a lengthy introduction…
Price: $50,000.00 Item Number: 123510
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"I have numerous readers among farmers and workers. They make India. Their poverty is India's curse and crime. Their prosperity alone can make India a country fit to live in:" Second Series of Mohandas K. Gandhi's Young India; signed and dated by him
GANDHI, Mohandas K. [Mahatma].
Young India Second Series 1924-1926.
New York: The Viking Press, 1927.
First edition of the second series of the writings of Gandhi. Octavo, original cloth with gilt titles to the spine and front panel. Signed and dated by Gandhi on the front free endpaper, "MK Gandhi 3:4:29." Gandhi founded and published the weekly periodical in English, Young India, from 1919 to 1931 to spread the philosophy and principles of the Satyagraha Movement and urge readers to participate in it. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Exceptionally rare and desirable signed and in this condition.
Price: $50,000.00 Item Number: 95311
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Exceedingly rare new and revised edition of M. de Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon extra-illustrated with additional portraits and views and over 50 autograph letters and notes signed by Napoleon I, members of his family, and royal associates
DE BOURRIENNE, Fauvelet. [Napoleon].
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte.
London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1885.
Exceedingly rare edition of M. de Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon extra-illustrated with additional portraits and views and over 50 autograph letters and notes signed by Napoleon I, members of his family, associates, and the author bound in. Octavo, bound in three quarters scarlet morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt with others uncut, tissue-guarded frontispiece and full color portrait to each volume, illustrated with engravings issued in the initial publication and over 100 extra portraits and views bound in. With over 50 autograph letters signed bound…
Price: $45,000.00 Item Number: 117078
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“THE SOUTHERN STATES HAD RIGHTFULLY THE POWER TO WITHDRAW”: JEFFERSON DAVIS’ HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERACY, FIRST EDITION; INSCRIBED BY HIM TO HIS PHYSICIAN
DAVIS, Jefferson.
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881.
First edition of Jefferson Davis’ important history of the Confederacy, inscribed by him to his doctor. With 18 maps (14 folding) and 19 plates, including stipple-engraved portraits of Davis, members of the presidential staff, General Lee, and others. Thick octavo, original three-quarter brown morocco, original brown cloth gilt, patterned endpapers, with steel-engraved plates, including frontispiece portraits, wood-engraved plates, maps. Association copy, inscribed by him in volume one, "Maurice Davis M.D. with the respects of the Author." The recipient was his friend and physician, when the Davis' were in London. Dr. Maurice Marcus Davis (1821-1898) acted as physician to the Davis’s whilst…
Price: $42,000.00 Item Number: 129632
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"There are cases in which the greatest daring is the greatest wisdom": FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT TREATISE ON POLITICAL-MILITARY ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY EVER WRITTEN; CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ'S ON WAR
VON CLAUSEWITZ, Carl Philipp Gottfried.
On War.
London: N. Trubner & Co., 1873.
First edition in English of arguably the most important treatise on political-military analysis and strategy ever written. Small quarto, three volumes complete in one, original cloth, frontispiece portrait of Clausewitz. Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham from the third German edition. In near fine condition. From the library of Lt. Colonel Walter Pipon Braithwaite with his bookplate and ownership signature. General Sir Walter Pipon Braithwaite was a British Army officer who held senior commands during the First World War. After being dismissed from his position as Chief of Staff for the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, he received some acclaim as a…
Price: $40,000.00 Item Number: 127055
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"High School introduced at young age (15 & 16) to Emily Dickinson, who is probably greatest American poet I realize now": Rare Graduate Student Questionnaire Completed and Signed by Jack Kerouac with a lengthy inscription
KEROUAC, Jack.
Jack Kerouac Autograph Questionnaire Signed.
1960.
Rare mimeographed questionnaire sent by a graduate student of City College of New York to Jack Kerouac; completed and signed twice by him with a lengthy inscription in conclusion. Two pages, partially printed the questionnaire begins with a typed letter signed by James A. Sherlock politely requesting Kerouac's response which reads in part: "Dear Mr. Kerouac, I am a graduate student of City College of New York, working upon an original research project aimed at uncovering certain educational factors in the lives of successful writers. As you undoubtedly know, there always has been considerable interest in analyzing the psychological make-up…
Price: $38,000.00 Item Number: 117950
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Rare first edition of Marshman's The Works of Confucius; complete with his Dissertation on the Characters and Sounds of the Chinese Language
MARSHMAN, Joshua [Confucius].
The Works of Confucius; Containing the Original Text, With a Translation. To Which is Prefixed a Dissertation on the Chinese Language and Character. [The Analects of Confucius].
Serampore: Printed at the Mission Press, 1809.
First English translation of the Analects of Confucius complete with the rare Dissertation on the Chinese Language and Character, here bound in a separate volume. Quarto, two volumes bound in three quarter morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, illustrated with 2 folding charts on Chinese characters, 4 further tables on 2 folding leaves, postscript at rear. In fine condition. Exceptionally rare, particularly with Marshman's separately printed dissertation present including the tables and charts.
Price: $35,000.00 Item Number: 131224
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Scarce first edition and only printing of Martin Luther King and The Montgomery Story; signed by both Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King
HASSLER, Alfred and Benton Resnik. [Martin Luther King Jr.; Coretta Scott King].
Martin Luther King and The Montgomery Story: How 50,000 Negroes Found a New Way to End Racial Discrimination.
Nyack, N.Y: The Fellowship of Reconciliation, [1957].
First and only edition of this highly influential and historic comic book used to teach the tactics and power of nonviolent resistance during the Civil Rights Movement. Quarto, original pictorial wrappers, the text is presented as a graphic novel illustrated in color. Boldly signed by Martin Luther King on the front panel, "Best Wishes Martin L. King" and additionally signed by Coretta Scott King. With annotations in blue pen noting that King signed the book in 1958 and Coretta in 1985. Illustrated by Sy Barry, text by John Duffy. In very good condition. Very rare. Copies of the original comic…
Price: $25,000.00 Item Number: 138337
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Rare First Edition of The Education of Henry Adams; One of only 40 Examples
ADAMS, Henry.
The Education of Henry Adams.
Washington: Privately Printed, 1907.
Rare first edition, one of only 40 copies printed of this classic work. The text of Education was not made commercially available until 1918, following the author's death, when it was published by Houghton Mifflin. In 1919 it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Modern Library named it as the best non-fiction book published in English since 1900. BAL 32; Reese Narratives of Personal Experience 2 ("certainly one of the great American biographies"). In near fine condition. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
Price: $25,000.00 Item Number: 140067
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First edition of Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions; From the collection of young Ernest Hemingway with his ownership inscriptions to each volume
HARRIS, Frank. [Ernest Hemingway].
Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions.
New York: Printed and Published by the Author, 1918.
First edition of Shaw's appreciation of Wilde. Octavo, original publisher's cloth. From the library of young Ernest Hemingway with his ownership name and address to the pastedown of each volume, "Ernest Hemingway Windemere Walloon Lake Michigan" and additional ownership name to volume one, "Hemingway." Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, an affluent suburb just west of Chicago about which resident Frank Lloyd Wright said, "So many churches for so many good people to go to." He was the second child of Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, a physician, and Grace Hall Hemingway, a musician. Each summer the…
Price: $25,000.00 Item Number: 141864
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First Edition of Martin Luther's King Jr.'s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?; inscribed by him
KING JR., Martin Luther.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967.
First edition of King's "last grand expression of his vision" (Cornel West). Octavo, original half cloth, illustrated with eight pages of black-and-white photogravures. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Carl Colodne, With Best Wishes for Peace and Justice, Martin Luther King Jr." Fine in a fine dust jacket, small name. Jacket design by Ronald Clyne. Jacket photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Bob Fitch. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.
Price: $20,000.00 Item Number: 137331
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First edition of Sir Douglas Mawson's The Home of the Blizzard; inscribed by him to the Premier of New South Wales, William Arthur Holman in each volume
MAWSON, Douglas. [William Arthur Holman].
The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914.
London: William Heinemann, 1915.
First edition of this classic account of Antarctic exploration, an exceptional association copy inscribed by the author in both volumes in the year of publication to a fellow Australian, the Premier of New South Wales. Quarto, two volumes, original dark blue cloth with gilt titles to the spine, gilt vignette to the front panels, profusely illustrated with 18 color plates, hundreds of black-and-white plates, numerous in-text illustrations and three color folding maps. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the second free endpaper of each volume in the year of publication to the Premier of New South Wales, William Arthur…
Price: $20,000.00 Item Number: 123065