Rare Book Monthly Articles - May - 2016 Issue

The New York Book Fair:  Great Fun

The New York Book Fair: Great Fun

  One of the great pleasures of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair in New York every April is its certainty.  Life has its ups and downs but somehow each April the leading dealers, institutions and collectors find a way to get past life’s debris to rally around the material on which the field thrives; rare, beautiful and unusual works on paper.  In some years events in the real world crowd out the joy and pleasure in the Park Avenue Armory, in others the skies are clear, the daffodils are out, and smiles are everywhere.  The 2016 NYABF goes into the records as a very strong event, as David...

An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Armory

An Open Letter to the Trustees of the Armory

Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, New York 10065   Dear Ms. Robertson;   Concerning the Armory and its relationship to the prin...

A Shakespeare First Folio, Long Lost, Is Found

A Shakespeare First Folio, Long Lost, Is Found

A long lost copy of Shakespeare's First Folio has been discovered, in just the sort of place you would most likely expect to find one – in the forgotten corner of a Scottish castle on the Isle of B...

Winnie the Pooh celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2016

Winnie the Pooh celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2016

"Winnie-the-Pooh," (a bear of very little brain) turns 90 this year. The fictional English bear and other characters created by A.A. Milne first appeared in print in 1926 in a small volume that was...

A Foundation and a Museum Battle Over Maurice Sendak's Estate

A Foundation and a Museum Battle Over Maurice Sendak's Estate

The dispute over the estate of children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak has turned from ugly to downright personal, according to an article recently published by the Philadelphia Inqui...

British Bookseller Brutally Murdered

British Bookseller Brutally Murdered

A British bookseller was brutally murdered in his Oxford home early last month. Adrian Greenwood, who was also a historian, antique seller, and writer, was found dead in the hallway of his home by ...

Cartouche, or The Thieves of the 5th Republic

Cartouche, or The Thieves of the 5th Republic

The economic crisis, the Panama Papers affair, the Protection of trade secrets law and the many financial scandals lately revealed in France have weakened the current 5th Republic and generated a g...

May 25: Landmark Abolitionist Material and Americana at Sotheby's New York

May 25: Landmark Abolitionist Material and Americana at Sotheby's New York

It's not often the autographs of nearly a quarter of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence are available in a single sale. Implausibly, this fact isn't even the biggest story of said s...

The London Antiquarian Book Fair:  Live at Olympia

The London Antiquarian Book Fair: Live at Olympia

What New York is to the new world London is to the old.  In May, Thursday -Saturday the 26th to the 28th, 180 dealers from the United Kingdom and beyond will meet again at the National convention h...

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book & Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary

The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book Paper Arts Fair Celebrates its 10th Anniversary. The St. Louis Fine Print, Rare Book and Paper Arts Fair, presented by the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the U...

Tenth Annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair Set for June 3-4

Tenth Annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair Set for June 3-4

The tenth annual Rose City Book Paper Fair has been scheduled for Friday, June 3, and Saturday, June 4 this year. The City of Roses is Portland, Oregon, and every spring booksellers and collectors...

Yet Another Book Theft – This Time $200,000 Worth of Comics

Yet Another Book Theft – This Time $200,000 Worth of Comics

Another month, another book theft. The stories are distressingly repetitive. This month it is comic books, the books we collected as kids and our mothers threw away. They didn't understand. Actuall...

Laws of Baseball

Laws of Baseball

Recently SCP Auctions, who specialize in sports memorabilia, sold “Laws of Base Ball” for $3.26 million.  It’s a great price although 25% less than the same house sold, in 2012, a Babe Ruth 1920 je...

Its All in the Name

Its All in the Name

The answer to struggling booksellers' sales issues is so simple and obvious it is a wonder so few have picked up on this before. The answer comes to us from Melbourne, Australia, where high rents o...

17 Booksellers' Catalogues Reviewed This Month

17 Booksellers' Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we have 17 book catalogues to review. A wide range of subjects for collectors are covered by these selections. Dr. Jorn Gunther Rare Books offers a spectacular collection of early bibles...

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.
  • 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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