• 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
  • 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
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    December 13/14
    Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Fleming (Ian). Dr. No, 1958; You Only Live Twice, 1964, 1st editions, presentation copies. £20,000-30,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Doyle (Arthur Conan). The Sign of Four, 1st edition, 1890. £5,000-8,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Huxley (Aldous). Brave New World, 1st edition, London: Chatto & Windus, 1932. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    December 13/14
    Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Stenbock (Eric Stanislaus). The Shadow of Death, 1st edition, 1893. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Tolkien (J. R. R.). The Lord of the Rings, 1st one volume edition, signed, 1968. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Orwell (George). Animal Farm, 1st edition, London: Secker & Warburg, 1945. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    December 13/14
    Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Cunard (Nancy, editor). Negro, Anthology made by Nancy Cunard, 1st edition, 1934. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Table Game. [The Little Artist Magic Painter, Austria], circa 1775. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Kirnig (Paul, 1891-1955). Austria, Vienna: Christophe Reisser's Söhne, c. 1930. £700-1,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    December 13/14
    Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: A collection of letters including from T. S. Eliot, Siegfried Sassoon, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley et al, from the Lady Ottoline Morrell collection. £700-1,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: The Gentleman's Magazine, or Monthly Intelligencer. 175 volumes, 1731-1844. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Mont Blanc peepshow. Mr Albert Smith's Ascent of Mont Blanc in Miniature, 1854. £1,500-2,000

Rare Book Monthly Articles - April - 2020 Issue

A Book Unfair

Booksellers, institutions and collectors look to New York City as the now and again Mecca for the high end rare book, manuscript, map and ephemera trade.  Rightly thought, given their expectations have been reaffirmed for decades, thousands flew, drove and rode to the Big Apple for the important event, The New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the New York Armory, hovering on the edge of Thursday March 5th, preparing for the opening at 5:00pm to the 4-day event pitched as the best for the very best.   Collectors arriving with comped tickets then needed to present passes to be admitted, creati...

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When the world doesn't seem safe

When the world doesn’t seem safe.   Fear is part of the human experience.  My father would drive drunk and even by age 10 I knew accidents and injuries occurred, by silently releasing the upstair...

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April 2020 marks Bicentennial of US Missionary arrival in Sandwich Islands (Hawaii)

Aloha RBH readers, Take a break from the epidemic raging all around us and see life through the eyes of New England missionaries arriving in the Hawaiian Islands in the early 1820s. The citations ...

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Auctions – A Moving Target

Not much of anything is normal or unchanging in this very difficult time. Book auctions have not been exempt. The term “auction rooms” implies the problem. An auction room is a place crowded with b...

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The New York Book Fair – Fare thee Well

It is thought that some 8,000 persons participated in or visited the New York Book Fair over March 5-8 and anecdotally the event held up reasonably well.  Given widely voiced concerns of the media ...

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Assault and Robbery: $50,000 Worth of Comic Books Stolen Physically from Dealer

There isn't much nice to be said about book theft, but at least for the most part it is a genteel crime. Most often, someone will sneak some books out of a library or bookshop in a briefcase or und...

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Holbach and Covid-19: Out Of Disorder!

The French government had just ordered total lockdown over the Coronavirus (Covid-19), and I made up my mind to stay positive. Consequently, I ordered a set of books from Como, Italy, which is loca...

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Sometimes the Mother of Invention is Necessity: Video Conferencing

The collectible paper field has been moving online for many years.  But never have there been reasons for auction and dealer catalogues to further reorganize and transform to conform to the law, co...

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Books and Paper Recovered from Stolen Auto

Boxes filled with stolen books and other types of paper, including personal letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, and baseball cards were recently recovered from a stolen automobile...

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April 4: Not all sales are delayed! Arader Galleries offers Audubon, maps, and more

With the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting life across the globe, auctions in the rare book field have slowed down, with many delayed to a date TBA. Not all sales have ceased, however, and one from Arad...

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Stolen Papers of Mathematician Alan Turing Seized by U.S. Attorney

The U.S. District Attorney for Colorado recently filed a forfeiture action in that state for various papers said to be stolen from a British boarding school in 1984. The various documents once belo...

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New York New York: As a place and a feeling

An intensely focused collection of unusual and rare engravings and lithographs of New York, the property of the Downtown Club near Wall Street, will be sold at Arader Galleries on Sunday April 25th...

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A 50-Year-Old Cookie Found in a 500-Year-Old book

A humorous story came out of the Cambridge University Library a short while ago. Librarians were leafing through a 500-year-old book when they came across an unexpected find. Pressed between the pa...

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Eight New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

For April, we review eight new bookseller catalogues. From the new, we have the first printed catalogue from Type Punch Matrix. From the long-established, there is the 30th anniversary catalogue fr...

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Rare Book Monthly

  • 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
  • Forum Auctions
    Online Sale
    Books and Works on Paper
    Ending 13th December 2023
    Forum, Dec. 13: Ackermann (Rudolph) [Views of Country Seats...], 146 hand-coloured aquatints from 'Repository of Arts’. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum, Dec. 13: Campbell (Colen) & others. Vitruvius Britannicus, or The British Architect..., 5 vol., [1751-1819]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum, Dec. 13: Austen (Jane). The Novels, 12 vol., Edinburgh, John Grant, 1911. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum, Dec. 13: Murder broadside.- Horrid and barbarous murder of a female by cutting off her head, arms, and legs,… £200 to £300.
  • Bonhams: FREDERICK DOUGLASS RETURNS TO AMERICA A FREE MAN. Sold for $353,175.
    Bonhams: TORTILLA FLAT INSCRIBED TO STEINBECK'S LITTLE SISTER, MARY. Sold for $57,600.
    Bonhams: A FRAGMENT OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF OF MICE AND MEN, EATEN BY THE DOG. Sold for $12,800.
    Bonhams: KEPLER INVESTIGATES PLANETARY MOTION. Sold for $1,008,375.
    Bonhams: AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT DRAFT LEAF FROM DARWIN'S DESCENT OF MAN, SIGNED BY DARWIN AT THE FOOT. Sold for $239,775.
    Bonhams: AUDOBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. THE BIRDS OF AMERICA. Sold for $32,000.
    Bonhams: FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (1706-1790). AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED. Sold for $38,175.
    Bonhams: MILNE, A.A. (1882-1956). BOXED SET OF 4 CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Sold for $20,480.

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