Mystery Pier Books, Inc.

Back in the day, wa-aay back, William Faulkner was working in Hollywood for MGM, toiling at screenplays. One day he asked the MGM head if, instead of coming to the studio, it would be okay to work from home. The executive agreed, and Faulkner walked off the lot. A couple of days later, they tried to reach him at his...

DICKENS, Charles
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
London: Chapman & Hall, (1839)
$7,450.

London: Chapman and Hall, (1839).  The truly rare original monthly parts, twenty in the true nineteen parts.  An extraordinarily sought-after, valuable, collectible addition to one's library.  Presented and protected in a splendid green half-oasis morocco leather and marbled custom clamshell box with single  rule to board gilt , raised...

The famed 19th century writer Honore de Balzac was a bit of a whack job. First of all, he lived in a hovel without any furniture and without heat. But what he did for interior decorating was this: He wrote on each wall what he wanted to see there. On one he wrote "Rosewood paneling with commode,' and on another...

Back from another London trip, returning with more highly collectible literary treasures both brand new and antiquarian.  First & foremost is the new, highly touted Murakami novel.  As all the U.K. newspapers screamed out in bold headlines and lengthy feature articles, MURAKAMI MANIA.  The new book, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, was released simultaneously in the U.K. and the...

Raymond Chandler used to say, "I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year, just on principle." But he, as is well known, drank much, much more than that. A confirmed alcoholic, at one point he decided to attempt recovery and was able to stay sober for some time. During this period Paramount hired him to...

Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) wrote the ALICE books under quite a handicap. He suffered from lumbago, arrhythmia, rheumatism, pleurisy, laryngitis, chronic bronchitis, neuralgia, constant diarrhea, boils, arthritis, regular toothaches, partial deafness, strange ongoing hallucinations, migraines, and a lifelong stammer. Small wonder he was a hardcore opium addict.

According to his daughter Margaret, J.D. Salinger often used to drink his own urine, apparently for curative reasons (hopefully not for refreshment). He also had some other offbeat practices: He spent time in his own Orgone Box (invented by Wilhelm Reich as a sexual stimulant); he favored a macrobiotic diet (which at one point turned his skin a kind of...

As is well known, Edgar Allan Poe was a classic diehard falling-down drunk, a real alcoholic.  (And the difference between an alcoholic and a REAL alcoholic is the difference between being dead & being REALLY dead).  The man couldn't stop drinking, and his behavior reflected that.  At age 27 he married his cousin Virginia.  She was 13.  Shortly after they...

One of our greatest writers, William Faulkner, one day went out dove hunting with director Howard Hawks and an actor he had never met, Clark Gable (a movie star not known for high intelligence). Faulkner and Hawks were having a long discussion about literature and writers while the actor just stayed silent. Finally, Gable asked the other two who they...

All writers agree: Rejection letters ain't no fun. "Moby Dick" was rejected by one publisher who dismissed it with, "Very, very long, over-long, and rather old-fashioned." George Orwell's "Animal Farm" was rejected by one American publisher with the note, "It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S." H.G. Wells had one publisher say his "War of the Worlds"...