American Historical Novels:<br>Scribner’s Catalogue 115 Revisited
- by Bruce E. McKinney
Someone bought one of these items and did incredibly well.
As I mentioned earlier, when the catalogue was published the
retail value of all 228 items was $6,725.For the forty items I bought recently Scribner’s prices totaled $904.00
compared to the $3,114.75 I paid.That cost
difference is almost exactly a 2% increase compounded annually over the 65
years since the catalogue was issued.In
pursuing these books I felt I had the solid judgment of Scribner’s rare book
department to rely on and a substantial amount of pricing data from our own
historical records and ABE’s current offerings. By comparison, the value of $904 in 1938 expressed in inflation adjusted dollars today is $10,900. These books have significantly underperformed inflation.
In looking more carefully at the available material I found
that items that had not appreciated often were simply out-of-favor or forgotten.The world can only focus on so many things at
a time and many of these books simply slipped into forgetfulness.They are of course generally not marquee
books.In some cases they weren’t
familiar to the sellers and in other cases sellers simply set a price they
would accept.In other cases prices were
set deliberately low to find buyers.In the
majority of cases these books were online for a long time.My impression is that the median time from
first listing to sale was at least a year although I hasten to say this is only
an estimate.Sellers, when finally
off-loading their Edsalls, are not about to tell the
buyer they had all but given up hope of ever getting their money out of such
books.They, like Charon,
look to hand their oars to someone else.
Certainly some of the material was over-priced in 1938 relative to the other items in the catalogue and certainly some of the material was under-priced. Generally the relative pricing seems to make sense with a few sterling exceptions. There was a 1936 first edition advance copy of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind with the dust jacket, signed by the author, offered in this catalogue for $25. The book was already very popular as the $25 price suggests. A year later though Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable made the book immortal and today’s prices reflect it. On ABE there are 7 signed copies of the first edition with dust jacket ranging in price from $3,450 to $14,900 for the second printing that seems a bit over the top. Perhaps the seller just doesn’t give a damn.
With this article are two ralated documents. One is a list of all books in the American Historical Novels catalogue. It is found as a separate piece on the Æ Monthly home page under the title American Historical Fiction Chart - here provided as a link. I have truncated the titles but also included information that will facilitate net searches for those who wish to make the effort. It is very interesting.
Searching: I use ABE and freely admit there are plenty of other sites with interesting books to buy. I like the flexibility of their searches and the scale of their listings. I generally searched the author’s last name and the printing date first. I found that using the complete title sometimes omitted matches. I also found that, just because I didn’t find matches using a first set of terms, I might still find the book under some other combination of terms. Flexibility in searching is important. And so is brevity. Put in the least amount of information to maximize your search results. Add information to your search criteria to refine your choices.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.