• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 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
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • 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 - March - 2021 Issue

A Death In The Family: Remembering Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919 - 2021)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919-2021

There was a time when today’s gray beards and white tops were bright-eyed pioneers, forging pathways and persuading American youth to join them in a ‘Great Liberation’ of the soul, body, and mind. They called it freedom from the old ways, death to ‘the Establishment’.

 

That colorful generation of nay-sayers gave us many heroes: a prince among them was Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet, publisher, consummate bookman. His famed bookstore, City Lights, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, became a touchstone for those who identified with the so-called Beat generation. But the bookstore was more than that: It was a cultural hub for local literati and curious tourists. As Ferlinghetti himself might say: ‘It’s a happening place, man, it’s jumpin’ – we do readings, music, mime. Personal discovery is bubbling up everywhere. We are where it’s at.’

 

Ferlinghetti had a long run, dying at the age of 101, ironically outliving almost all of the up-&-comers he promoted and published. To his last day, he continued to live in a rent-controlled walk-up nearby the modest bookstore he made famous 65 years ago.  The scale of his life can be measured by his rising stature in the auction rooms. And, in equal measure, we note the sheer space given his obituary in the newspaper he read daily: the San Francisco Chronicle. In its 30-page edition on Wednesday, February 24th, 2021, the Chronicle ran a spectacular homage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti: a full one-and-a-half pages. Any one in San Francisco who loves books and bookshops read that obituary with wet eyes. I surely did.

 

Mr Ferlinghetti lived a rich and complex life, a life of variety and brave action. He was an officer in WW2; he earned degrees at Columbia University and the Sorbonne; and he put down literary roots in North Beach, San Francisco, in 1951. Moving forward with courage and resolve, he and his literary tribe – Peter Dean Martin and others -- launched something new and exciting in 1953: they called it the City Lights Pocket Bookshop. It would be a beacon and an anchor for the city he came to love. Soon after, this small, successful enterprise expanded into publishing. Inch by inch, the footprint was being made.

 

In 1956, Ferlinghetti stepped into something more important than he realized: he published a set of verses by Allen Ginsberg, titled Howl And Other Poems (44 pages, 5” x 6 1/4”, 75 cents; Number Four in Ferlinghetti’s Pocket Poet Series). The collection’s first poem, Howl, gave us some of the most compelling opening lines in all of American poetry:

 

 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,

starving hysterical naked,                                    

      dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for

an angry fix,                                                         

     angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection 

      expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing  

                obscene odes on the windows of the skull, ….                     

 

(Courtesy, Mulvihill Collection, Brooklyn, NY / Sarasota, FL.)

 

But Ferlinghetti’s big success with Howl came at a high price. The poem, the poet, and the publisher quickly became ensnarled in a heated obscenity trial; and, of course, such high visibility cemented the reputation of City Lights as an outpost of free speech.

 

When the trial verdict came in, protecting the right of self-expression, it was explained that Howl contained “redeeming social significance.” (Sound familiar? Hadn’t we heard this before about an unreadable novel written by some Irishman?) That fig leaf of “redeeming social significance” has since been stretched to cover the vulgarities of the Internet and even presidential gaffes.

 

Mr. Ferlinghetti, long regarded as a local luminary (Poet Laureate, 1998), is the subject of a documentary film, Ferlinghetti by Christopher Felver in 2009.  And faithful to its tradition of honoring  distinguished citizens, San Francisco has given its most famous bookman his own street: a block now known as Via Ferlinghetti.  As a published author, and because of his association with the Beat generation, Ferlinghetti’s books, correspondence, and ephemera are both read and collected today. Teachers of American literature and Book History will now give special attention, we hope, to Ferlinghetti’s deep contribution to the Small Book Movement and especially the Small Press Movement in American publishing.

 

A search today for auction records for Ferlinghetti in Rare Book Hub’s Transactions Database finds 737 answering entries. One can safely predict that the name Ferlinghetti will echo in the auction rooms for ages to come.   

 

As well, in our Upcoming Auctions Database we find that PBA (Pacific Book Auctions) is holding a sale on March 18th, Fine Literature with Beats, Bukowski & the Counterculture. This event is offering some lots related to Ferlinghetti imprints.

 

As you run those search results, you’ll also find one at Leslie Hindman in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Florida, on the 19th:  Lot 7. A group of works by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, many Signed or Inscribed, including:

 

Pictures of the gone world. San Francisco: City Lights, 1955. -- A second copy, the second edition, published March 1956. -- A Coney Island of the Mind. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1958. -- Starting from San Francisco. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1961. With original 33 1/3 RPM record. Also with a duplicate copy of the original record. SIGNED. -- Unfair Arguments with Existence. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1963. SIGNED. -- A second copy. SIGNED. -- The Secret Meaning of Things. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1968. SIGNED. -- Moscow in the Wilderness, Segovia in the Snow. San Francisco: City Lights, 1967. SIGNED. -- Over All the Obscene Boundaries. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1984. SIGNED. -- And 5 others. Together, 13 works in 13 volumes, in original publisher's bindings or wrappers, condition generally fine, complete list available on request.

 

Estimated USD300.00 – 400.00

 

It’s never too late to add to your collection or to start a new one! I think Mr. Lawrence Ferlinghetti would approve.

 

Say, let’s have a Ferlinghetti moment on the Via Ferlinghetti. I’ll bring the bongos and weed – you bring some Howl. Lawrence is smiling.

 

____________


Posted On: 2021-03-01 08:27
User Name: bukowski

Ginsberg was not charged in the obscenity trial. He was traveling outside the U.S.


Posted On: 2021-03-05 06:03
User Name: mairin

An enjoyable, informative piece.
My special thanks to Bruce McKinney for a pleasant collaboration on this article
and especially to Michael Stillman for 'tending to some technical fussiness
& also for adding a few 11th-hour refinements.
Thanks, as well, to Bruce Johnson of Veery Books, NY /
Member, IOBA / for directing me to the YouTube video of Ferlinghetti's poet-laureate installation, 1998 -- that link now added, courtesy Mike Stillman.
Keep well, all, Maureen E. Mulvihill (Rare Book Hub, Guest Writer).
___


Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    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.
    Forum Auctions
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    Part 2
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    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.
  • Sotheby’s
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    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
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