• Sotheby’s
    Fine Books from a Distinguished Private Library
    28 November 2023
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 28: Captain Thomas Brown | Illustrations of the American ornithology. £80000-120000
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 28: William Hamilton | Campi phlegraei. £40000-60000
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 28: Nicola Zabaglia and Domenico Fontana | Castelli, e ponti con alcune ingegnose pratiche. £6000-8000
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 28: Bible, German | Nuremberg: Koberger, 1483. £40000-60000
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 28: Bible, English | King James version. £8000-12000
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    30th November, 2023
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Saint Jerome penitent, woodcut with contemporary hand-colouring and letterpress text beneath, [Augsburg], [Johann Froschauer], [c.1498]. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Elimithar (Elluchasem) "Ibn Butlan". Tacuini sanitatis, first edition, Strasbourg, Johann Schott, 1531. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: [Missale Romanum], Latin, Incipit ordo missalis secundum consuetudinem Curiae Romani, manuscript in Latin, on vellum, 234ff. [c. 1400]. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    30th November, 2023
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Foyle copy.- [Shakespeare (William)]. Macbeth. A Tragedy: With all the Alterations, Amendments, Additions, and New Songs. As it is now Acted at the Theatre Royal, for Hen. Herringman, 1687. £5,000 to £7,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Dickens (Charles). A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, first edition, first impression, first issue, Chapman & Hall, 1843. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Lawrence (T.E.) Revolt in the Desert, working draft typescript, 1927. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    30th November, 2023
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Hampstead Bindery.- Phillips (Stephen). Marpessa, exquisitely bound by The Hampstead Bindery, almost certainly P.A. Savoldelli, 1900. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Matisse (Henri).- Joyce (James). Ulysses, one of 1500 copies, this one of 250 signed by the author and artist, New York, The Limited Editions Club, 1935. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Burroughs (Edgar Rice). Tarzan at the Earth's Core, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to his son, New York, 1930. £5,000 to £7,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    30th November, 2023
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Fitzgerald (F. Scott). Tender is the Night, first edition, first printing, signed by the author, New York, 1934. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: Fleming (Ian).- Hooks (Mitchell) and David Chasman. Dr. No, British film poster, Stafford & Co Ltd, [1962]. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum Auctions, Nov. 30: America.- California.- Palou (Francisco). Relacion Historica de la Vida Y Apostolicas Tareas delVenerable Padre Fray Junipero Serra..., first edition, second issue, 1787. £6,000 to £8,000.
  • Swann
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    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining, Philadelphia, 1846. $3,500 to $5,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: 17th–19th-century case maps of various locations. $1,500 to $2,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Andreas Cellarius, Haemisphaerium Stellatum Boreale Cum Subiecto Haemisphaerio Terrestri, celestial chart, Amsterdam, 1708. $2,500 to $3,500.
    Swann
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    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: Vincenzo Coronelli, Set of engraved gores for Coronelli’s monumental 42-inch terrestrial globe, Venice, circa 1688–97. $18,000 to $22,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, group of four navigational charts, Antwerp, 1580s. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Thomas Bros, Block Book of Berkeley, Oakland, 1920s. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann
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    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Nieuhoff & John Ogilby, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, map of China, plan of Canton, London, 1673. $1,200 to $1,800.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Frederick Sander, Reichenbachia, St. Albans, 1888-1894. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Two early illustrated works on horsemanship and breeding, Nuremberg, early 18th century. $700 to $800.
    Swann
    Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
    December 7, 2023
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Gould, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. Supplement to the First Edition, London, 1834; 1855. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Swann, Dec. 7: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1808–14. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Dec. 7: Oakley Hoopes Bailey, Hackensack, New Jersey, Boston, 1896. $800 to $1,200.
  • CHRISTIE’S
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    13 December
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    Christie’s, Explore now
    TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000
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    VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000
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    PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000
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    A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000
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    AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
    C.1311. £100,000–150,000

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2016 Issue

The Last of The Monks

A recent discussion with a few book lovers on social media ended up with the listing of the last known copy of an alleged extinct ‘edition’ on French soil: the rarest translation of Matthew G. Lewis’ The Monk—Le Moine. The only other known copy—with a prestigious provenance—lies on a shelf of the library of the University of Virginia. This is all about various editions and reversed engravings.

 

Matthew G. Lewis was only 20 when, in March 1796, he first published The Monk, a cornerstone of the Gothic Novel. As acknowledged, the dreadful plot of The Monk was inspired by various popular myths from Germany, Denmark or Spain. Yet, its modern style and narrative format make it unique. It contains the classical ingredients of a Gothic novel such as black masses, underground tunnels, blood, sex and supernatural manifestations. Of course, the critics were outraged by the so-called depraved content of the book. In the meantime, it became hugely popular with the public. It crossed the English Channel as soon as Year V (1797, revolutionary style), where it gave birth to a play in 5 acts (Barda, Year VI)— “inspired by the English novel,” reads the title page. The novel itself was picked up by Claude-François Maradan (1762-1823), whose bookshop was, interestingly, located “rue du cimetière / Street of the Cemetery.” Until the publication of the famous catalogue of Gérard Oberlé, in 1972 (De Horace Walpole à Jean Ray. Romans gothiques anglais, romans noirs), most bibliophilists considered that the 4 in-16°-volume set of 1797, with 4 engravings, was the first French edition. However, Oberlé reminded that Maradan was always following the same pattern when it came to publishing a book; first, he would put out an in-12° edition without illustration; then he would put out an in-16° edition with some engravings. Le Moine was no exception. So that the 3 in-12°-volume set of 1797 is now believed to be the very first edition.

 

According to the National Library of France (BNF), Maradan became an apprentice in 1787, and a bookseller a few months later. He went bankrupt in 1790—probably because of the Revolution of 1789—and a next time in 1803; but he was still publishing books by 1819, as testified by an edition of Le Moine in 3 volumes that came out that very year. “He was probably related to the Parisian engraver François Maradan (1766-circa 1816),” reads the website of the BNF. Le Moine apparently sold quite well, since it was reprinted the same year; but this time with 4 engravings. The identity of the engraver is unknown. Did Maradan call upon his alleged relative from Paris, François? One thing is for sure, the engraver did a very good job. Gorgeous and attractive, the plates represent the most dramatic scenes from the book: Ambrosio trying to resist a half-naked nun, a bloody black mass held in an underground passage, a mysterious masked woman stepping out of a creepy castle, or the devil grabbing Ambrosio by the hair under a stormy sky.

 

The bookseller made sure the clients who had bought the first edition could upgrade their copy by buying the engravings separately; consequently, he featured the page numbers of both editions on them. In the top right-hand corner of the digitalized copy available at googlebooks, (AN V, 1797) the plate reads: “Tome 3e. in 12 Page...” And in the top left-hand corner: “Tome 4e”. The page number is also to be found in the bottom right-hand corner: “Page 186.” As a matter of fact, it is quite common to find the first edition bound with the engravings of the second one.

 

The ‘Inversed set’

 

Florian Balduc is a French bookseller and the head publisher of Otrante editions, who recently listed the various sets of engravings of Le Moine on his website. Indeed, when he compared the engravings, he realized that they vary from one edition to the other. Here are the ascertained sets:

 

 

1) The original one, featuring the page number of the second edition. “The most common,” says Florian Balduc.

2) The same set as above, featuring the page numbers of both the first and the second editions—so the buyers of the first edition could upgrade their copies.

3) The same set, with no page number at all, as reported by another bookseller.

4) The engravings of the edition of Year VI (1798), which are slightly different. “They are more ‘raw’ and certain parts have been drawn with less details.”

5) What we will call ‘the inversed set’, since the four plates are printed in reversed orientation. “I only know one copy in the world to feature these plates,” said Florian Balduc. “And it is the copy of the late Maurice Lévy.” In the early 1960s, Lévy, who was studying at La Sorbonne, went for three months to Virginia, USA. There, he read the entire Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction in order to complete his memoir entitled The English ‘Gothic’ Novel, 1764-1824. It “became a standard source and helped to revive scholarly interest in the field,” writes Nicole Bouché, Director of Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. “And Lévy became a recognized authority on the gothic genre. Maurice’s final work, a scholarly edition of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ classic gothic tale, The Monk, was published posthumously in 2012.”

 

Before he passed away in 2012, he bequeathed his collection—“which, although relatively modest in size when compared to others,” as he once described it, “has the advantage of illustrating the extraordinary vogue of the 'roman noir' during the French Revolutionary period”—to the Library of Virginia where he had enjoyed such a good time. Among these treasures are several French editions of Le Moine, including one with the reversed engravings. Of course, this detail didn’t escape Lévy’s scrutiny. “He was fascinated by the illustrations found in French Gothic novels,” writes David Whitesell on the website of the Library of Virginia, “and in 1973 he published a book on the subject, Images du roman noir.” According to Whitesell—who seems to still consider the 4 in-16° volume set as the first edition—, the success of the book took Maradan by surprise: “It is likely that the publisher, not anticipating the need for a second edition, neglected to save the copperplate and therefore had to commission a new plate of the same image.  In copying the original frontispiece (which printed in reverse orientation from the design as etched on the copperplate), the etcher necessarily reversed the image!” It makes sense, except that Maradan was used to put out a second in-16° edition of his publications; unless he had not anticipated the need for a second second edition.

 

Anyway, the plates are reversed so that the characters of the first one are walking in the opposite direction, the masked woman of the second one is right-handed, the nun is bleeding from the left arm on the third one, and on the last one, the devil is holding the parchment of Ambrosio’s damnation in his left hand, not in the right one. But there are other differences as well: the engravings have no frame and no page number, for instance. A simple number, from 1 to 4, indicates the volume they relate to, as they were the frontispieces of each volume. The captions, for their part, have remained the same. 


Posted On: 2016-07-31 16:55
User Name: wklimon

Neither the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction nor the Maurice Lévy Collection of French Gothic are at the "Library of Virginia" ( http://www.lva.virginia.gov ), but they are instead at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia ( http://small.library.virginia.edu ), where there is currently an exhibition of items from those collections: http://www.library.virginia.edu/blog/exhibits/fearsome-ink-the-english-gothic-novel-to-1830


Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
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