By Bruce McKinney
One hundred and forty souls traveled to New York to eat spinach and listen to a succession of speakers assembled by the Grolier Club of New York to discuss "Books in Hard Times." Seats were hard to obtain. The Grolier is a walled garden, pretty on the inside and difficult to penetrate. They have over the years provided discussions and forums on important matters pertaining to the world of books, manuscripts and ephemera. This conference is in keeping with that tradition.
For an account of the proceedings I rely primarily on Jeremy Dibbell [pronounced de Bell with...
By Michael Stillman
Has the time come for a parting of the ways? Is it time for libraries and books, embattled institutions, each struggling for relevance and survival in a technologically accel...
By Bruce McKinney
Look out upon the fields of book, manuscript and ephemera collecting and from a distance you can see generations of amber waves of grain, a seamless continuum extending in memo...
By Michael Stillman
The settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers that would allow the internet giant to make the text of out-of-print books available to the publi...
By Bruce McKinney
In the course of book collecting over a lifetime broken into parts, growing up, work and business development, two decades overseas, a thirty-two year marriage, children and se...
By Karen Wright
I probably shouldn't tell you about this; there were too many people there as it was, but here goes, anyway. We were getting itchy feet last month and decided we needed a couple...
By Michael Stillman
BookFinder.com has issued its annual lists of the most sought after out-of-print books. The times they are a-changin'. A lot has happened since last year's lists were compile...
By Bruce McKinney
Book collecting is a difficult undertaking that requires luck, determination and perseverance and then only occasionally achieves success sufficient to warrant enduring approba...
By Michael Stillman
There is a strange case from the Denver Library, and some interesting exhibitions In The News this month. It's been a tough time for the Denver Public Library lately. The cit...
By Bruce McKinney
A look at the titles of the most recent book, manuscript and ephemera sales indicates the increasing presence of prints, drawings, maps and decorative illustrations in sales th...
By Michael Stillman
A little while back, we reviewed the wonderful new autograph guide published by autograph dealer The Raab Collection (click here). Among the reams of information provided by ...
By Michael Stillman
There is a most useful, at times jaw-dropping series of books out today with the title Eat This Not That, by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding. I will not attempt to review t...
This month we review 13 new bookseller catalogues. They're a varied lot. Maggs Bros. and the William Reese Co. are focused on voyages and travel. Helen R. Kahn and Associates offer books pertaining...
Koller, Mar. 26: Wit, Frederick de. Atlas. Amsterdam, de Wit, [1680]. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Merian, Maria Sibylla. Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumennahrung. Nürnberg, 1679; Frankfurt a. M. und Leipzig, 1683. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON. Faust. Ein Fragment. Von Goethe. Ächte Ausgabe. Leipzig, G. J. Göschen, 1790. CHF 7,000 to 10,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Hieronymus. [Das hochwirdig leben der außerwoelten freünde gotes der heiligen altuaeter]. Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger d. Ä., 9. Juni 1497. CHF 40,000 to 60,000.
Koller, Mar. 26: BIBLIA GERMANICA - Neunte deutsche Bibel. Nürnberg, A. Koberger, 17. Feb. 1483. CHF 40,000 to 60,000
Koller, Mar. 26: HORAE B.M.V. - Stundenbuch. Lateinische Handschrift auf Pergament, Kalendarium französisch. Nordfrankreich (Rouen?). CHF 25,000 to 40,000
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
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
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 7: Thomas Fisher, The Negro's Memorial or Abolitionist's Catechism, London, 1825. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 78: Victor H. Green, The Negro Travelers' Green Book, New York, 1958. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 99: Rosa Parks, Hand-written recollection of her first meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., autograph manuscript, Detroit, c. 1990s. $30,000 to $40,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 154: Frederick Douglass, Autograph statement on voting rights, signed manuscript, 1866. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 164: W.E.B. Du Bois, What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas, Washington, circa 1936. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 263: Susan Paul, Memoir of James Jackson, Boston, 1835. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 267: Langston Hughes, Gypsy Ballads, signed translation of García Lorca's poetry, Madrid, 1937. $1,500 to $2,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 274: Malcolm X, Collection from Alex Haley's estate, 38 items, 1963-1971. $4,000 to $6,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 367: Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, Auburn, NY, 1853. $2,500 to $3,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 402: Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, Xenia, OH, 1892. $2,000 to $3,000.