Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2022 Issue

Fine Books & Manuscripts at Bonhams New York, December 13, 2022

Kepler Investigates Planetary Motion

Kepler Investigates Planetary Motion

By Ian Ehling

Director, Fine Books & Manuscripts

Bonhams New York

 

In his autobiography The World of Yesterday, Stefan Zweig describes his interest in collecting manuscripts: “The one thing that can grant a slight inkling of this incomprehensible process of creation is the handwritten pages and particularly those not yet intended for the press, those sprinkled with corrections, the tentative first outlines, from which gradually the future valid form crystallizes … It was a pleasure to me to hunt them down at auctions, a joyous effort, to follow a scent to the most hidden places, and at the same time a kind of science….” The Kepler manuscript (lot 19) in the December 13 Fine Books & Manuscripts sale at Bonhams New York was part of Zweig’s famous collection and encapsulates his desire to find the best example of the author’s writing.  The initial fragment of 3 leaves (4 pages each) was dispersed, with one leaf now in the Morgan Library in New York and the other in the Smithsonian collection in Washington DC.  The best leaf – mentioning Copernicus – is still in private hands and is offered here for the first time since 1988. It is one of only two scientific Kepler manuscripts to come to market in the past 80 years.

Two of my favorite lots in the sale describe the ending of beloved stories. One is the final drawing of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in the hundred-acre wood (lot 68). Pooh and Piglet walk home in the golden evening having said goodbye to their friends following Christopher Robin’s party for Pooh. Without a question this is to me the most important Winnie-the-Pooh drawing in existence. The other ending of equal importance is the bittersweet return of Mowgli to the world of man in the final Mowgli story. Lot 100 is the corrected and annotated typescript for “The Spring Running,” the last chapter in Kipling’s Jungle Book. Kipling’s holograph? manuscript is in the British Library and shows significant differences with these final edits.

The battle of Trafalgar ended Napoleon’s plans to invade England and solidified Britain’s dominance of the seas throughout the nineteenth-century. Nelson’s revolutionary battle plan for Trafalgar (lot 136) was transmitted in his famous secret memorandum. Dated 10 days before Nelson was killed in battle on October 21, 1805, this copy to Nelson's Vice-Admiral of his Blue fleet Robert Calder represents possibly the most important copy of the memorandum outside the holograph copy sent to the Vice Admiral of the Red fleet Collingsworth (which now resides at the British Library).

In addition to these extraordinary manuscripts and drawings you will find in the Bonhams sale a wonderful selection of early printed books, atlases, illustrated books, music, Dickensiana and literature.  As Zweig observed, “the pride of owning a few such leaves was accompanied by the sporting desire to acquire them, to hunt for them at auctions or in catalogues. How many tense hours do I owe to that chase, how many exciting incidents…” You will have a chance to participate in our December 13 auction just like Stefan Zweig did one-hundred years ago: in person, through absentee bid, by telephone and now of course online.   

Rare Book Monthly

  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    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.
  • 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.
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