Rare Book Monthly Articles - March - 2019 Issue

Izzy Young, Founder NYC’S Folklore Center, Dead at 90

Izzy Young, Founder NYC’S Folklore Center, Dead at 90

Israel G. (“Izzy”) Young, noted bookstore owner and iconic figure in the folk music scene, died at his home in Stockholm on Feb. 4, 2019. He was 90. Izzy opened the Folklore Center at 110 MacDougal Street in New York City in the mid 1950s and within a few years it became a mecca for the folk scene. Personally, he was one of the book world’s most original, influential and at times irritating characters. Born in Manhattan in 1928 and raised in the Bronx, he was a little older than the youthful crowd that flocked to his shop, which by the early 1960s was a hangout and message central for all t...

Karl Lagerfeld, Fashion Designer, Book Collector Extraordinaire, Dies

Karl Lagerfeld, Fashion Designer, Book Collector Extraordinaire, Dies

When Karl Lagerfeld died at the age of 85 a few days ago, the world knew him as a fashion designer. He had been creating fashion designs since the 1950s and his reputation was second to none. Since...

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Armory

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Armory

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Armory on Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City over the weekend of March 7-10.  This fair is perennially the most important rare book event in...

398 Reasons to Go to the New York Book Fairs March 7-10

398 Reasons to Go to the New York Book Fairs March 7-10

Three Rare Book, Manuscript, Map, Book Arts and Ephemera Fairs all over the same weekend in New York.  For those who love collectible paper and related materials this is your moment.   The Manhat...

Auctions in New York around the week of the Book Fairs

Auctions in New York around the week of the Book Fairs

The New York Book Fairs are honey to the book collecting community and the prospect of both three area fairs and four auction houses holding sales over the same period makes for an exceptional oppo...

Ephemera Fair 39 in Connecticut March 14-17

Ephemera Fair 39 in Connecticut March 14-17

Over the long weekend of March 14-17 in Greenwich, Connecticut there’s a fair that represents part of the future of the rare and collectible paper fields than generally gets as much attention.  How...

Marie Kondo Gets Herself in a Mess by Recommending Disposing of Books

Marie Kondo Gets Herself in a Mess by Recommending Disposing of Books

Marie Kondo, the "tidying up" expert, recently got herself in a mess of trouble with book lovers when she suggested books, like all the drek we keep around our homes, could use some tidying up too....

Remembering Arthur Walker, Sherlock Holmes Collector

Remembering Arthur Walker, Sherlock Holmes Collector

The Florida Bibliophile Society sadly announces the recent passing (February 9, 2019), in Tampa, Florida, of Arthur Thomas Walker, age 87. Art Walker was a respected collector of Sherlock Holmes an...

Dallas and the Maroons: God’s Will

Dallas and the Maroons: God’s Will

The Maroons were runaway slaves of the New World, who chose a life of hardship rather than of submission. In Jamaica, they fought against the colonists for decades, almost bringing the island to it...

Bodleian Library Asked to Return Stolen Books... Over Four Centuries Later

Bodleian Library Asked to Return Stolen Books... Over Four Centuries Later

Is there a point at which books, once stolen, no longer need to be returned, or is there no statute of limitations? Does the obligation to return literally last forever? Faro 1540, a group from the...

British Library Digitizes Its "Private Case" Collection, AKA Porn Books

British Library Digitizes Its "Private Case" Collection, AKA Porn Books

In the apparent belief that there is a shortage of digital porn available to the public, the British Library has digitized its infamous "Private Case" collection. You may have to go to the library'...

Eric Caren and Bonhams:  a fresh approach to auctions

Eric Caren and Bonhams: a fresh approach to auctions

Among the more than a thousand auctions in the books, manuscripts, maps, and ephemera auctions that take place every year there are some that are more important than others.  Eric Caren’s 7th aucti...

Mar 2: Books & Maps at Leland Little Auctions

Mar 2: Books & Maps at Leland Little Auctions

North Carolina-based Leland Little Auctions will be in short order hosting their Important Spring Auction. Scheduled for Saturday, March 2nd, the sale contains over 400 lots, of which just a handfu...

Two Textbook Thieves Sentenced to Prison

Two Textbook Thieves Sentenced to Prison

Two Texas men have been sentenced to prison for stealing textbooks, particularly in Wisconsin, though they are believed to have conducted their operations at colleges in Minnesota, North Dakota, Ar...

Booksellers with a Heart

Booksellers with a Heart

A bookstore owner was in the hospital. So his competitors came and kept his shop open.   Here’s evidence that book dealers have a heart and big ones at that.   In the Washington Post online rec...

A Major Break in the Case of a $1.4 Million Comic Book Theft

A Major Break in the Case of a $1.4 Million Comic Book Theft

Police got a major break in a large comic book theft case in Palm Beach, Florida, when a man walked into a comic book shop near Phoenix with four of the almost 450 missing comics. Sometime between ...

LiveAuctioneers Sees Enormous Growth in 2018

LiveAuctioneers Sees Enormous Growth in 2018

LiveAuctioneers reports that 2018 was another bang-up year in terms of growth for its auction platform. LiveAuctioneers is something of an auction listing aggregator. They bring together listings f...

Legally Binding: Book Bindings on Display at Yale Law Library

Legally Binding: Book Bindings on Display at Yale Law Library

The Yale Law Library is noted for its exhibitions of law books that are celebrated for attributes beyond their legal text. That may involve the physical appearance of the book, or the illustrations...

10 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

10 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

There are 10 new catalogues up for review this month. Librairie Métamorphoses has a selection of valuable and unusual books, autographs, music and photographs. Marilyn Braiterman Rare Books offers ...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
    Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
    Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
    Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
    Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
    Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
    Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
  • 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
  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000

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