Christie's recently announced it will be selling the Portland copy of Audubon’s double elephant folio Birds of America that was published 1827-1838. This same set was sold in 2012 and returns to the rooms for another rendezvous with history, fate, money and the auctioneer’s hammer. It will encourage comparisons and may be a bellwether for a market that is skewing both high and low. The overall market has been in a soft decline while the best material has been rising. Audubon is the best of the best. The estimate will be $8-12 million and the proceeds go to benefit charitable conservati...
Poor Shakespeare. For centuries, people have claimed he didn't actually write his plays. Various names have been put forth as the real author of Shakespeare's plays by people who cannot believe an ...
Come the second weekend in March the American Antiquarian Booksellers' Association [aka ABAA] will host their 58th Annual New York International Book Fair at the Seventh Regiment Armory at 643 Park...
The ABAA Rare Book Fair is a New York institution. Exhibitors are limited to they who are members of the ABAA or ILAB, the international umbrella association for 22 national antiquarian bookseller...
Until a few years ago a book collector could expect the New York ABAA Book Fair to draw the cognoscenti from around the world in early April. Well, that was then and this is now and the ABAA’s New...
In 1906 Edward Curtis took on a massive project. Curtis was a self-taught photographer, a man with no more than an eighth grade education who managed to set up a studio in Seattle doing photographi...
Every month I cover a handful of sales for Rare Book Monthly, and “Fine Books and Manuscripts” might be the most commonly used sale title I’ve come across. This month, however, Bonhams has upped th...
An Illinois woman has been sentenced to six years in prison, and almost $400,000 in restitution, which the judge noted she will never be able to repay, for the theft of an author's comic book colle...
As Jamaican singer Horace Andy once sang: you see a man’s face, but you can’t see his heart—well, actually you can read a man’s thoughts on his face, providing that you know of a little book from t...
March has been transformed from a quiet month for rare books and historic paper into an important month, the cause the shift of the ABAA Fair at the Armory from an April to a March event to accommo...
A British librarian has been sentenced to 6 months in jail for stealing books from her library, and another two months for burning some of them to hide the crime. That latter crime is even worse, t...
Unless you’re a hard core Vienna enthusiast in love with the many kinds of art, architecture and design produced by the Wiener Werkstätte (WW) between 1903 and 1932, you might want to scroll past t...
Is it not the dream of readers and everyone else connected to books to someday be an author yourself? Well, the other day, the opportunity came to me in an email, tucked away in my spam folder. A f...
A collection of images from the Science History Institute, primarily related to chemistry, is now available for viewing online, with many free for the download. There are currently just over 5,000 ...
There are six new booksellers' catalogues reviewed this month. Langdon Manor Books has a collection of African Americana. The George S. MacManus Company targets the American West. The William Reese...
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
Fonsie Mealy’s Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale April 30th & May 1st
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1:The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT. "Scene af: Røverne i Vissenberg i Fyen." in Harpen, 1822.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST THREE FAIRY TALE PAMPHLETS, WITH ALL INDICES AND TITLE PAGES. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: THE FIRST FAIRY TALES WITH A SIGNED CARTE DE VISITE OF ANDERSEN AS FRONTIS. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: KARL LAGERFELD. Original pastel and ink drawing in gold, red and black for Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes (1992), "La cassette de l'Empereur."
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY OF THE SIXTH PAMPHLET FOR PETER KOCH. Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn, Second Series, Third Pamphlet. 1841. Publisher's wrappers, complete with all pre- and post-matter.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN RARE AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED IN ENGLISH from "The Ugly Duckling," c.1860s.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HEINRICH LEFLER, ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR FOR ANDERSEN'S SNOW QUEEN, "Die Schneekönigin," 1910.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST EDITION OF ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH. Wonderful Stories for Children. London, 1846.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN ON MEETING CHARLES DICKENS. Autograph Letter Signed ("H.C. Andersen") in English to William Jerdan, July 20, 1847.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR EDGAR COLLIN. Nye Eventyr og Historier. Anden Raekke. 1861.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: DOLL HOUSE FURNITURE BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, DECORATED WITH FANTASTICAL CUT-OUTS, for the children of Jonna Stampe (née Drewsen), his godchildren.
Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR GEORG BRANDES. Dryaden. Et Eventyr fra Udstillingstiden i Paris 1867. 1868.
![Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/e08f39b2-647e-4890-9a6d-b744e07a6c91.jpg "<b>Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1:</b> [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. <i>Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,</i>L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.")
