Rare Book Monthly

Articles - September - 2022 Issue

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce its upcoming auction, The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese, taking place online from 1-14 September.

A few highlights from The Herman Melville Collection of William Reese

A few highlights from The Herman Melville Collection of William Reese

Christie's New York is pleased to announce its upcoming auction, The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese, taking place online from 1-14 September.

 

William S. Reese was the pre-eminent dealer-scholar of printed Americana of his generation, renowned for his scholarship, generosity and the legacy he left on his profession. His private collections of literature were less well-known in his lifetime, although still celebrated. He collected many authors—from James Thurber to Saki—but the two he collected in by far the greatest depth were Robert Graves and Herman Melville. Reese gifted the majority of his collection of Graves to the Beinecke in 2002 and 2015; the Melville he kept.

 

Of all the great writers of America’s first century, none but Melville so thoroughly represented the eternal wanderlust of the human race—a wanderlust that was arguably more trenchant in mid-19 th century America that it has ever been at any other time or place. And not only is Melville the chronicler of that distinctly American form of wanderlust, but his language is singularly timeless—for example employing Quaker diction and pronouns within a prophetic modernism more akin to Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. A century after it was written, Robert Penn Warren would compare Melville’s epic poetry to T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland.

 

Herman Melville presents a singularly ambitious challenge to the collector. For starters, the Melville family was notorious for burning their own papers. All of Melville’s letters to his mother were burned and nearly all of his letters to his siblings (see lot 676 for a notable exception). One of Melville’s nieces threw his correspondence with her father into a bonfire at Arrowhead, and Melville’s daughter Elizabeth is suspected of destroying all the correspondence between her parents. (See Lepore, “Melville At Home.” The New Yorker, 29 July 2019). “Billy Budd” was very nearly lost to the sands of time and a large portion of the original manuscript for Typee was discovered in a barn as recently as 1983. The physical longevity of Melville’s printed works is not much better. The meager sales of every single work subsequent to Typee meant ever smaller print runs, intermittent pulping, and inexpensively produced books (except for The Whale) which rarely survived and were certainly not “collected” until at least about 30 years after Melville’s death.

 

The most important Melville collection in private hands, The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese includes rarities like John Marr (lot 659)Timoleon (lot 660), the triple-decker first edition of Mardi (lot 616), and three different copies of the English edition of The Whale (lots 630631, & 632); Melville’s own copies of Obed Macy's History of Nantucket (lot 672) and Dante’s Divine Comedy (lot 677); Nathaniel Hawthorne’s very own copy of Redburn (lot 621); important presentation copies including Typee inscribed to Henry Smythe, the man who enabled Melville to turn his back on writing (lot 654); and, last but certainly not least, letters and family papers, among them a wonderful sign for Allan Melville's New York shop (lot 664) and a letter from Herman arranging his first meeting with publisher Richard Bentley (lot 619).

 

The sale will be on preview at Rockefeller Center from 9-14 September.

 

Contact:

Christina Geiger

cgeiger@christies.com

212-636-2667

Rare Book Monthly

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  • Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. 11,135 USD
    Sotheby’s: Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven and Other Poems, 1845. 33,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Leo Tolstoy, Clara Bow. War and Peace, 1886. 22,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1902. 7,500 USD
    Sotheby’s: F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, and Others, 1920-1941. 24,180 USD
  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana
    November 14
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: LEROUX, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera. FIRST AM. ED, FIRST ISSUE IN THE VERY RARE DUST JACKET. 1911. $6,000 – 8,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: GOULD, John. A Monograph of the Trochilidae...Humming-Birds. L., [1849-] 1861. $60,000 – 80,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: A COMPLETE RUN of Limited Editions Club publications, v.p. [mostly New York], 1929-2010. $50,000 – 60,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: ORWELL, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Lon., 1949. FIRST EDITION IN A VERY FINE DUST JACKET. $6,000 – 8,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: GOULD. A Monograph of the Ramphastidae...Toucans. L., [1852-] 54. SECOND ED. $35,000 – 45,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: The Federalist. NY, 1788. FIRST EDITION, THICK PAPER COPY. $60,000 – 80,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Nov. 14: SELBY. Plates to Selby’s Illustrations of British Ornithology. Edin., [1833-] 34. $20,000 – 30,000.
  • Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE
    Le Neptune Oriental
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    CASSAS
    Eaux fortes de la Sicile et quelques vues d’Espagne
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    CASSINI DE THURY
    Carte générale et particulière de la France.
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    JOUY; GARNERAY
    Vues des côtes de France dans l'Océan et dans la Méditerranée
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    LA PÉROUSE
    Voyage autour du monde
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    LE GENTIL DE LA GALAISIERE
    Voyage dans les Mers de l’Inde
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    LICENT
    Hoang Ho, Pai Ho, Loan Ho, Leao Ho. Itinéraires suivis dans le bassin du golfe du Pei Tcheuly
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    FRENCH SCHOOL FROM THE 19th CENTURY
    Panorama d’Athènes
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    PEETERS
    Description des principales villes, havres et isles du golfe de Venise
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    PÉRON; FREYCINET
    Voyage de découverte aux terres australes
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    STACKELBERG
    La Grèce : vues pittoresques et topographiques.
    Gros & Delettrez, 7 November:
    VALENTINER
    Atlas des Sonnensystems.
  • Forum Auctions
    Online Sale:
    The Detective Fiction Collection of John Cooper
    Ending 7th November, 2024
    Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). The Thirteen Problems, first edition, The Crime Club, 1932. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Dumb Witness, first edition, 1937. £3,000 to £4,000.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Cards on the Table, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Forum, Nov. 7: [Carr (John Dickson)], "Carter Dickson" and John Rhode. Drop to his Death, first edition, Heinemann, [1939]. £600 to £800.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Berkeley (Anthony). Jumping Jenny, first edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1933. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions
    Online Sale:
    The Detective Fiction Collection of John Cooper
    Ending 7th November, 2024
    Forum, Nov. 7: Marsh (Ngaio). Overture to Death, first edition, The Crime Club, 1939. £600 to £800.
    Forum, Nov. 7: [Day-Lewis (Cecil)] "Nicholas Blake". The Beast Must Die, first edition, 1938. £750 to £1,000.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Brand (Christianna). Green for Danger, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, John Lane the Bodley Head, 1945. £600 to £800.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Murder is Easy, first edition, signed by the author, 1939. £3,000 to £4,000.
    Forum, Nov. 7: Sayers (Dorothy L.) Lord Peter Views the Body, first edition, Gollancz, 1928. £6,000 to £8,000.

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