• Koller Auctions
    Books & Autographs
    20 March 2024
    Koller, Mar. 20: DADA - Der Zeltweg. Redaktion: Flake, Serner, Tzara. Zürich, 1919. CHF 5,000 – 8,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Jespers, Floris - Peeters, Jan. Kinderlust. Antwerpen, J. F. Bogaerts & R. R. Dodson, [1923]. CHF 2,000 – 3,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: FARBENLEHRE - Chevreul, M. E. De la Loi du contraste simultané des couleurs et de l'assortiment des objets colorés. Paris, 1839. CHF 4,000 – 5,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: BOTANIK - Schrank, Franz de Paula von. Flora Monacensis, seu plantae sponte circa Monachium nascentes. München, 1811-1818. CHF 20,000 – 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: French Bible manuscript. Latin manuscript on parchment. With 81 illuminated, ornamental and figurative initials. Paris, c. 1250. CHF 90,000 – 120,000
    Koller Auctions
    Books & Autographs
    20 March 2024
    Koller, Mar. 20: Gradual for the use of a Dominican convent. Latin manuscript on parchment, with Flemish rubrics in black and red. Mecheln (?), c. 1520. CHF 25,000 – 40,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Calendar. French manuscript on parchment. With 12 large colored thorn leaf initials on a gold background. Paris, c. 1380/1390. CHF 40,000 – 60,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Freud, Sigmund. Collection of 23 handwritten letters to Alphonse Maeder in Zurich. In addition to 4 letter drafts from Maeder to Freud. 2 February 1910 - 21 September 1913. CHF 50,000 – 80,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Jung, Carl Gustav. Collection of 26 autograph and 3 typescript letters and a postcard to Alphonse Maeder. 1911-1918. CHF 20,000 – 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 20: Nietzsche, Friedrich, philosopher. Handwritten letter signed to Richard Wagner. Basel, September 27, 1876. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2012 Issue

Is Mentioning a Book's Provenance a Legally Actionable Invasion of Privacy?

Oct. 10, 1960, Time described Ms. Abdouch as a “pretty, black-haired” Kennedy campaign secretary.

A truly bizarre lawsuit has been initiated in the state of Nebraska against a bookseller on the grounds of a violation of that state's Privacy Act. The bookseller is not from Nebraska, but is noted modern first edition specialist Ken Lopez of far-off Massachusetts. I will admit to being a privacy hawk. I do not like things that track my computer, or hidden cameras, companies that sell my name, or forms that demand personal information. I believe most questions can be answered “None of your business.” Still, this case strikes me as so trivial, so frivolous, so molehill to mountain, it is hard to fathom. Nevertheless, if the plaintiff prevails, this could have a chilling effect on the work of many booksellers.

Helen Abdouch, an 84-year-old resident of Omaha, Nebraska, sued Ken Lopez, personally and as a bookseller, for an unspecified sum that “exceeds $75,000” (such a claim must exceed $75,000 in order to sue in federal court as she did). Her claim states that Lopez exploited her name for commercial gain, a legal cause of action under Nebraska's 1979 Privacy Act.

This story begins half a century ago. In 1960, Ms. Abdouch was an executive secretary for John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in Nebraska (Kennedy lost the state by almost 25% of the vote). In 1963, she received an inscribed copy of Richard Yates' first novel, Revolutionary Road. Yates had been a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy, who managed his brother's campaign, thus explaining a connection between Yates and Abdouch. Yates inscribed the book, “For Helen Abdouch – with admiration and best wishes, Dick Yates 8/19/63.”

The lawsuit does not tell us what happened to the book between the years 1963 and sometime during the first decade of the 21st century. That was when Lopez purchased the book, reportedly from someone in Atlanta. He then posted the book online and sold it three years ago. However, Lopez was evidently guilty of one misdeed, one that we suspect many other booksellers have committed. He forgot to take the listing down. Three years later, it was still posted.

When Lopez posted the book, he wrote up a description of his copy. He noted the inscription, and then did a little internet research on who Ms. Abdouch was. There wasn't much information available, but he did find her name briefly mentioned as executive secretary to John Kennedy's campaign in a 1960 Time Magazine article about Robert Kennedy. In his book description, Lopez said that, considering the campaign connections of Abdouch and Yates, it was reasonable to think this was an author's presentation copy to her. According to the lawsuit, Lopez admitted that he made no further effort to determine if Ms. Abdouch was still alive, assuming, evidently based on the great number of years intervening, and lack of other information online about her, that she had died.

Through the three years of posting, Ms. Abdouch was unaware of the book listing. She doesn't have a computer. However, on May 25, 2011, she was informed of it by a friend. Why what sounds like such a trivial thing, at least to this writer, set off Ms. Abdouch so is not clear. According to her complaint, Ms. Abdouch “has suffered the harm of invasion of privacy by the use of her name and identity for commercial purposes without her consent.” She then claims that she has suffered $10,000 worth of actual damages, along with unspecified “compensatory damages” and costs that must equal at least $65,000 for her to sue in federal court, along with “distress” over the invasion of her privacy and use of her identity for commercial purposes without consent.

It is unclear as to whether Ms. Abdouch is more upset about her privacy being violated, or from someone else making money off her name. The invasion of privacy, to me, seems trivial. Though Mr. Lopez has a fine website, I suspect the number of people who visit it, as a percentage of the population, is miniscule. I would bet if you grabbed 1,000 random people off the streets of Omaha and asked how Lopez's listing affected their opinion of Ms. Abdouch, not a one would have any idea what you were talking about. She never would have known of the listing but for a friend running across it and telling her. If her concern is more that Mr. Lopez is making money off her name, one suspects that had he just said “inscribed by the author to a (unnamed) Kennedy campaign worker,” it would have sold just as quickly and for just as much. While I do not know how much Mr. Lopez made on the sale, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was less than the $75,000 Ms. Abdouch seeks. This is a desirable book, and could have brought a few thousand dollars, but not seventy-five.

This lawsuit is troubling on a couple of levels. First, as a strictly legal, as opposed to bookselling proposition, it is hard not to notice the burdens it places on Mr. Lopez to defend it. It will not be cheap for him to defend a lawsuit 1,500 miles away from his home. That could easily be thousands of dollars. This looks ripe for a case where a defendant agrees to a settlement of a few thousand dollars, regardless of the merits of the case, as this is cheaper than defending it. Just as Ms. Abdouch has asked to be paid “the costs of this action” if she prevails, one hopes the court will make her, or her lawyer, whoever was responsible for bringing this claim, compensate Mr. Lopez his costs if he prevails. This just smacks of abuse of the legal system.


Posted On: 2012-01-01 00:00
User Name: Genet

In France, where I live, cutting out the name of the dedicatee from an inscription or ripping out the page altogether are depressingly common practi


Posted On: 2012-01-02 00:00
User Name: violinist01

This is so grotesque it defies words.


Rare Book Monthly

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  • Forum Auctions
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.

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