AbeBooks Top Ten for 2011 Shows Prices Are Rising on the Book Listing Site
- by Michael Stillman
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
AbeBooks has released their list of the Top 10 highest price paid for books on their website, and the list may be more telling for what prices were paid than what is on it. AbeBooks, even as the leading book listing site, has never been a source for the highest prices. You may see books listed for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if those books are sold, they are sold outside of the site. Few people will press a “buy” button for a couple hundred thousand dollars without discussing the purchase with the seller first. The big sales are made either directly with the dealer, or at auction, where a well-known auction house provides the description and its own promise of accuracy and authenticity. Indeed, we have never seen a book sell on AbeBooks that would even come close to qualifying for the AE Top 500 list of prices at auction.
Nevertheless, we are seeing price movement at the top on AbeBooks that is hard to ignore. People are paying prices on Abe unheard of in the past. This past year, the top price paid on AbeBooks was over $50,000. This is different. It is also something of an aberration, being more than double the price of number 2. However, when we went back two years to compare to the Abe Top 10 of 2009, what we found is that that year's number 1 item sold for $17,000, which would have only tied for number 7 in 2011. The number 2 item from 2009 would not have even made it to the Top 10 for 2011.
Clearly something is happening here. It isn't that prices are rising quickly, as AE's Trends in Book Auction Prices charts reveal that the market has been, at best, flat over the past two years. Evidently, buyers are becoming more comfortable buying fairly expensive items on AbeBooks. No, they may not be ready to push the “buy” button for a First Folio or a folio edition of Birds of America yet, but the confidence level is rising. Abe is inching its way further into the business of selling higher priced books, more so than ever before.
Here, now, is AbeBooks' list of their Top 10 prices for 2011.
10. Les Fleurs du Mal, a first edition of Charles Baudelaire's classic French poetry, $14,925.
9. AnAuthenticAccountofanEmbassyfromtheKingofGreatBritaintotheEmperorofChina, George Staunton's account of a late 18th century mission to China. $15,800.
8. TheBotanyoftheAntarcticVoyageoftheH.M.DiscoveryShipsErebusandTerrorintheYears1839-1843, a partial set of naturalist J.D. Hooker's report on the voyage. $16,000.
7. AnAuthenticAccountofanEmbassyfromtheKingofGreatBritaintotheEmperorofChina, by George Staunton. If this sounds remarkably like #9, it is, except this is a second edition, and it was signed by Staunton. $17,000.
6. TheCamelsAreComing, first UK edition of W.E. Johns' first Biggles book. The daring Biggles is not well known in America, but was very popular in England from the 1930s through the 1960s. $17,754.
5. Fourteen pages of manuscript notes about Thomas Carlyle written by John Ruskin. These were used for a book Ruskin was preparing. $18,750.
4. TheHobbitorThereandBackAgain, by J.R.R. Tolkein. This is a first edition, first impression, with dust jacket, of Tolkein's 1937 book. $20,447.
3. A complete set of the ten issues of AspenMagazine, the “magazine in a box” that was published from 1965-1971. $22,915.
2. ToKillaMockingbird, a signed copy of Harper Lee's classic on injustice in the South. $25,000.
1. Oh the irony! Number 1 on the list of highest prices paid was written by a man who despised capitalism and the great wealth it would take to spend over $50,000 on a book. It is DasKapital,KritikderpolitischenOekonomie, by Karl Marx. What could be a more fitting example of the death of Communism? $51,739.
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.
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.