Rare Book Monthly Articles - April - 2018 Issue

Enigma, Seeking A Eureka

MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, I was contacted by a collector in Rhode Island. (He is now a member of the Rare Book Hub community of book specialists.) The collector had acquired from a used bookdealer in Pennsylvania a tantalizing document: a hefty, anonymous manuscript (quarto format), mostly in French, in a deluxe gold-tooled binding, with marble endpapers, high-quality watermarked paper, and valuably dated on the title-leaf “1691”. Overall condition fair, with damage to the boards and hinges; binding, strong and stable; watermarked paper with some water damage, but high-quality writing paper. Ov...

The Rare Book Transaction Database: Now on Your Phone

We live in a world increasingly dominated by databases and cell phones. Prices, for better or worse, now move in real time, and both buyers and sellers benefit from awareness. Rare books, manuscrip...

Massive Heist of Rare Books from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library Valued at Millions of Dollars.

News of a massive theft from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh has been revealed. The theft was originally discovered in April of 2017, though detailed information has only recently come out. A bo...

Looking to Import Old Books into the EU? Be Prepared for Much More Paperwork if These Regulations Are Adopted

Booksellers and collectors aren't known for being terrorists, but new regulations that may be adopted by the European Union to stop terrorists may do more to interfere with book collecting than ter...

Strength at the New York Shows

The New York Antiquarian Book Fairs have come and gone, delivering large crowds and excellent results to the more than three hundred exhibitors who participated in at least one of the three fairs: ...

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair: It’s a question of timing

There’s probably nothing to be done about it but the timing of the New York ABAA Fair in March, a concession to business and financial realities, is simply not as good as almost any April dates.  A...

Credit Suisse Labels Rare Books a "Mediocre" Financial Investment

Rare books hit the news wires in an unflattering way last month. Credit Suisse, the major banking and financial institution headquartered in Zurich, released its annual Yearbook. They spoke of inve...

A New Look for Old World Auctions

Many of you have been members of Rare Book Hub for years now, and over that time, you have surely witnessed the site change and evolve. But we are certainly not the only business in the industry in...

Archives: The future arrives courtesy of Elvin Montgomery

Elvin Montgomery has been both an educator, dealer and appraiser for more than three decades and he increasingly has adjusted his focus as Black Americana, his category, has emerged from the shadow...

An Old Friend: calling it a day

Pensacola.  King Queen Books has begun their going out of business sale.   Long an active used and rare book dealer in west Florida, the surviving wife and partner of James Servies, Lana, is closi...

Froger's Travel - Nothing wrong with killing Spaniards... and English

Welcome on board the Faucon Anglois (or English Falcon), one of the six vessels led by Captain Jean-Baptiste de Gennes in 1695. You are about to embark on a three-year expedition that will take you...

The History of Jamaica 1494-1838 by Thibault Ehrengardt – This Book Captures Its Tragedy, Brutality, Pirates, Revolts, and Earthquake, All Sweetened by a Massive Dose of Sugar

Many of our readers have been enjoying and learning from the essays written by our French correspondent, Thibault Ehrengardt. Enhrengardt writes of both events current in the book world and reviews...

Dust - an Occupational Health Hazard for Booksellers

Since I've been handling books and old paper for over 40 years without sneezing or blowing my nose a thousand times a day, I wonder why I have become sensitive to dust and other airborne pollutants...

Law Books Bright and Beautiful on Display at the Yale Law Library

The common wisdom is that law books are long and boring plain texts. I don't know whether this exhibit will fix the long and boring part of that reputation, but it will make you reconsider the assu...

Eleven New Catalogues Reviewed for April

This month we review 11 new bookseller catalogues. Travels and voyages are the subject of recent collections from J. F. Letenneur Rare Books and the William Reese Company. If you want to take one o...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
  • Sotheby’s
    Important Modern Literature from the Library of an American Filmmaker
    8 December 2023
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Kerouac, Jack. Typescript scroll of The Dharma Bums. Typed by Kerouac in Orlando, Florida, 1957, published by Viking in 1958. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. The autograph manuscript of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 300,000 - 500,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Miller, Henry. Typescript of The Last Book, a working title for Tropic of Cancer, written circa 1931–1932. 100,000 - 150,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with a lengthy inscription to Joe Goode. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. in our time, first edition of Hemingway’s second book. 30,000 - 50,000 USD
  • Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 2:
    John Ford Clymer, U.S. Troops' Triumphant Return to New York Harbor, oil on canvas, circa 1944.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 44:
    Edward Gorey, Illustration of cover and spine for Fonthill, a Comedy by Aubrey Menen, pen and ink, 1973.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 50:
    Harrison Cady, frontispiece for Buster Bear's Twins by Thornton W. Burgess, watercolor and ink, 1921.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 54:
    Ludwig Bemelmans, Pepito, portrait of Pepito from the Madeline book series, mixed media.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 79:
    Gluyas Williams, Fellow Citizens Observation Platform, pen and ink, cartoon published in The New Yorker, March 11, 1933.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 86:
    Thomas Nast, Victory, – for the moment, political cartoon, pen and ink, 1884.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 91:
    Mischa Richter, Lot of 10 cartoons for Field Publications, ink and pencil, circa 1940.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 111:
    Arthur Getz, Sledding In Central Park, casein tempera on canvas, cover of The New Yorker, February 26, 1955.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 124:
    Richard Erdoes, Map of Boston, illustration for unknown children's magazine, gouache on board, circa 1960.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 155:
    Robert Fawcett, The old man looked him over carefully, gouache on board, published in The Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1945.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 170:
    Violet Oakley, Portrait of Woodrow Wilson, charcoal and pastel, circa 1918.
    Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 188:
    Robert J. Wildhack, Scribner's for March, 1907, mixed media.
  • CHRISTIE’S
    Valuable Books and Manuscripts
    London auction
    13 December
    Find out more
    Christie’s, Explore now
    TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000
    Christie’s, Explore now
    AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
    C.1311. £100,000–150,000

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