Rare Book Monthly

Articles - November - 2016 Issue

Nov 22: Rare Books, Autographs and Photographs at Doyle New York

Highlight lots from Doyle New York's sale of Rare Books, Autographs and Photographs

Highlight lots from Doyle New York's sale of Rare Books, Autographs and Photographs

Ted Ripley-Duggan, Vice-President of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Doyle New York, has a habit of preparing auction summaries for Rare Book Monthly that are more thorough than our normal auction previews. He did it back in April, and he’s done it again for Doyle’s semi-annual sale of Rare Books, Autographs and Photographs, which is scheduled for November 22, 2016 at 10 am eastern time. The full catalog is viewable on Doyle’s website. With just over 600 lots, I’ve decided it’s best to allow him to provide the full rundown of what the sale has to offer collectors of Americana, autographs, natural history, literature, and more. The following auction preview is courtesy of Ted Ripley-Duggan:

The catalogue begins with 78 lots of deaccessions from the Library of the Explorers Club. These include a very rare guide to the Holy Land by Ludolphus de Suchen, the Iter ad Terram Sanctam, issued in Strasbourg about 1475-80. This book, intended for pilgrims, is one of the first travel guides. Other works include Blagdon’s A Brief History of Ancient and Modern India bound as usual with the companion work by Hunter (a classic of the color plate literature on India). There is also a set of Staunton’s Authentic Account of an Embassy…to the Emperor of China, including the fine pictorial atlas, and a variety of other works, including many of substantial rarity. While the books bear the bookplate of the Club, and some its blind-stamp, it is hard to imagine a more appropriate association; one of those few cases where a library marking is not a significant detriment.

Americana, a longtime strength of Doyle’s auctions, includes a late letter by John Wilkes Booth. Written on 14 November 1864, this (in veiled and secretive terms) speaks of Booth’s desire to have a bag returned to him, from context well-nigh certainly containing a gun, probably his cherished derringer. The following year, on April 15 he assassinated Abraham Lincoln, quite conceivably with this firearm. Booth letters written so close to that terrible event are, to say the least, infrequently offered for sale.

This is followed shortly thereafter by a copy the first edition of Adam Smith’s 1776 An Inquiry…Into the Wealth of Nations, the first edition, a copy belonging to a member of the Boswell family (sadly, not James). The next item in the sale is a manuscript that preserves the official returns from the British Colonies in the Americas, Lord Dartmouth’s copy, compiled on the eve of the Revolution. It contains a cornucopia of information on the material wealth of the Colonies and its sources, a focus that speaks to myopia to the mounting tensions in America on the part of British officials. The next lot pertains to the Revolution itself, and the Declaration of Independence, as represented by the very rare newspaper printing of July 10, 1776 in The Pennsylvania Journal; and the Weekly Advertiser from the great patriot printer, William Bradford. All early newspaper printings of the Declaration are desirable, and only eight copies are known of this, generally considered the sixth appearance in an American newspaper.

The Americana section contains the first four editions of the Book of Mormon, and a wealth of manuscript material, that includes the diary of Edward Cutbush, the first surgeon of the United States Navy, along with a fine selection of autograph material, mostly of North American interest (from a private collection) which includes a nearly complete run of American Presidential letters and documents, as well as a fine Lafayette letter to McHenry. From another source comes a group of ninety letters by Franklin Pierce to his secretary, Sidney Webster.

Keeping to an American theme, but turning to South America and the liberation movement that led to the overthrow of centuries of Spanish rule, the catalogue moves on to a trove of both manuscript and printed material pertaining to Simón Bolívar and his generals. Much of this was first sold in the 1980s and ‘90s at auction and has been privately held since, and indeed little of this importance has surfaced subsequently. In the space of about forty lots the focus moves from Queen Isabella I of Spain, through some fugitive printings from Venezuela, on to some remarkable letters and documents signed by Bolívar, José Antonio Páez, Antonio José de Sucre and almost all the major figures responsible for casting off the yoke of Spanish rule.

Autographs end with a short but interesting section of music, with three Franz Liszt autograph pieces, a very rare engraving of the young Mozart and his family, a number of signed musical quotations by great composers, as well as an Ed Sullivan Show cue sheet from the 12 September 1965 broadcast, signed by all members of the Beatles.  

Color-plate books include a a set uniformly bound in what are most likely the publisher’s binding of the second octavo edition of Audubon’s Birds and Quadrupeds, and a complete set of the first edition of Wilson’s Ornithology together with Bonaparte’s four-volume extension of that work. In the same section is a good set of the Microcosm of London with early watermarks, and several Rowlandson watercolors including an unpublished one (exhibited in the 1986 Huntington Library show) of Death and the Highwayman intended for the English Dance of Death.

This is followed by a lengthy selection of fine bindings ranging from a very beautiful Scottish “herringbone” binding on the folio Baskett Bible of 1753-4 to a magnificent private collection including some very decorative bindings purchased in the 1988 Doheny sale and others of that period, including examples of the Doves Press, Rivière, Bayntun, Zaehnsdorf and all the usual suspects. This section includes a substantial number of very well-bound editions of major authors such as Balzac, Conrad, Eliot, Prescott, Wilde etc.

Next comes a group of early printing including a collection of fragments from early legal manuscripts, of fragments of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, several incunabula including the very beautiful Koberger Antoninus Florentinus of 1484, the major initials illuminated in the characteristic Nuremberg manner, and a fine collection of early and important editions of Cervantes.

The final two sections of the book sale are Literature, with some interesting offerings including an especially choice Arthur Conan Doyle letter and a first edition in unsophisticated condition of Melville’s Moby-Dick, and a decent section of artist books, private press and similar material, including the Andy Warhol 25 Cats Name[d] Sam and One Blue Pussy.

The book sale is followed by Photography, including some choice photobooks (including signed copies of Robert Frank’s The Americans and The Lines of my Hand, a collection of Ed Ruscha, a very uncommon Wegman artist book the Field Guide to North America and to other Regions containing 34 unique pieces including collages, photographs, drawings, manuscripts etc.

Early photography includes a number of Atgets, three extremely fine large format Curtis prints (two of which are orotypes in the original Curtis frames), and a strong selection of twentieth century work including a number of important portfolios by Caponigro, Porter, Tice etc., as well as images by Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Peter Beard, Bill Brandt, Margaret Bourke-White, Harry Callahan, George Hoynigen-Huene, George Hurrell, O. Winston Link, Robert Rauschenberg, Eugene Smith, Arthur Tress and Edward Weston (among others).

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  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale
    April 30th & May 1st
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) & Egan (Felim) artist. Squarings, Twelve Poems, D. (Hieroglyph Editions Ltd.) 1991. €1,750 to €2,250.
  • Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT. "Scene af: Røverne i Vissenberg i Fyen." in Harpen, 1822.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST THREE FAIRY TALE PAMPHLETS, WITH ALL INDICES AND TITLE PAGES. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: THE FIRST FAIRY TALES WITH A SIGNED CARTE DE VISITE OF ANDERSEN AS FRONTIS. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: KARL LAGERFELD. Original pastel and ink drawing in gold, red and black for Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes (1992), "La cassette de l'Empereur."
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY OF THE SIXTH PAMPHLET FOR PETER KOCH. Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn, Second Series, Third Pamphlet. 1841. Publisher's wrappers, complete with all pre- and post-matter.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN RARE AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED IN ENGLISH from "The Ugly Duckling," c.1860s.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HEINRICH LEFLER, ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR FOR ANDERSEN'S SNOW QUEEN, "Die Schneekönigin," 1910.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST EDITION OF ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH. Wonderful Stories for Children. London, 1846.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN ON MEETING CHARLES DICKENS. Autograph Letter Signed ("H.C. Andersen") in English to William Jerdan, July 20, 1847.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR EDGAR COLLIN. Nye Eventyr og Historier. Anden Raekke. 1861.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: DOLL HOUSE FURNITURE BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, DECORATED WITH FANTASTICAL CUT-OUTS, for the children of Jonna Stampe (née Drewsen), his godchildren.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR GEORG BRANDES. Dryaden. Et Eventyr fra Udstillingstiden i Paris 1867. 1868.

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