Rare Book Monthly Articles - May - 2022 Issue

Fifty Years a Bookseller:  or, The Wolf at Your Door

Fifty Years a Bookseller: or, The Wolf at Your Door

Rare books of all kinds can be found online, at libraries and at fairs somewhere, some place every minute of every day around the world.  What were once called rare books has evolved into collectible paper and now subsumes every manifestation of paper and ink, into a single field and today databases aggregate most of the offers into an answer proffered in a fraction of a second.  Presto everyone with an iPhone is an expert.   So what happens then when someone who has spent his life, over the past 50+ years working in the trade and now, ambling into his dotage, remembering the many interes...

The Reese Americana Collection Appears

The Reese Americana Collection Appears

The life of Bill Reese ended 3 years ago, but his discernment, judgment and collecting acumen continue to be admired. His name will soon be illuminated on the marquees at Christie’s in New York.  O...

Extraordinarily Valuable Missing Darwin Notebooks Recovered

Extraordinarily Valuable Missing Darwin Notebooks Recovered

One of the most important documents in scientific history, missing for 20 years, has been found. More accurately, it has been returned. For 20 years, librarians at Cambridge University have been un...

The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven to be Sold at Sotheby’s

The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven to be Sold at Sotheby’s

May is going to be a busy month in the auction rooms at Sotheby’s as The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven, will be sold in London on 18 May, 2022.  Auctions are commonplace bu...

In Short Order Charlotte Brontë's Last Privately Held “Little Book” Sold for $1.25 Million

In Short Order Charlotte Brontë's Last Privately Held “Little Book” Sold for $1.25 Million

Charlotte Brontë and her sisters have been in the news a lot lately. It's nice to be remembered as they all died over a century and a half ago. It's also interesting to note that the stories have b...

Christopher Coover:  Remembered and Appreciated

Christopher Coover: Remembered and Appreciated

Christopher Coover recently passed away, leaving a remarkable history with Christie’s, richly detailed in the many important sales he catalogued as a team member.  Collections and collectors tend t...

AbeBooks Top 20 Highest Prices Paid in January-March

AbeBooks Top 20 Highest Prices Paid in January-March

Here is a list of the twenty most expensive books purchased on the AbeBooks website during the first three months of 2022. There are books old and recent, in English and Latin, fiction and real, sc...

Jon Buller, Master Hand Bookbinder (Detroit area)

Jon Buller, Master Hand Bookbinder (Detroit area)

On May 1st, 2022, the Book Club of Detroit (founded, 1957; current president, novelist Charlene Kull) hosts Master Hand Bookbinder, Jon Buller. As founder of Bessenberg Bindery, he served Detroit-a...

MacKenzie: the More Mediocre, the Healthier!

MacKenzie: the More Mediocre, the Healthier!

I had a headache the other day so I took a tablet and was fine again. Ordinary miracle in a world now able to modify a rat’s cells so it can live 30% longer! But mankind’s come a long way! This I r...

Book Banning – The New York Public Library Is Trying to Counter It

Book Banning – The New York Public Library Is Trying to Counter It

Banned Books Books For All.   The long arm of censorship has been bearing down on America in ways I've not seen in all my (many) years. Books are being banned from public and school libraries not...

The Bibliophilegroup Celebrates 25 years with Grand Poohbah Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson at the Helm

The Bibliophilegroup Celebrates 25 years with Grand Poohbah Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson at the Helm

The Bibliophilegroup Mailing List, headed by Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson, 79, celebrates its 25th anniversary next month. Though not exactly a household name, this subscription only group, ($30/yr/ 2 we...

ABAA Virtual Book Fair: New York Edition will take place May 4 and 5, 2022 at abaa.org/vbf

ABAA Virtual Book Fair: New York Edition will take place May 4 and 5, 2022 at abaa.org/vbf

Although the U.S. may be out of the acute phase of the pandemic, one trend that has emerged in the rare book field is that virtual book fairs continue to be put on. While many organizations are run...

Ukrainian Publisher Issues Edition of Go the F*** to Sleep

Ukrainian Publisher Issues Edition of Go the F*** to Sleep

In the midst of the terror and killing that is Ukraine, a book is being published. It is, perhaps, not what you would expect, Adam Mansbach's Go the Fuck to Sleep. It has been translated to Ukraini...

May 4-11: Fahrenheit 451 and other signed material at AntiquarianAuctions.com

May 4-11: Fahrenheit 451 and other signed material at AntiquarianAuctions.com

AntiquarianAuctions.com, an online rare book auction house, has been in business since 2010 under the leadership of antiquarian bookseller Paul Mills. In spring 2020, just as the pandemic was promp...

Peter Harrington:  An Archive of James Bond Treasures is up for Sale

Peter Harrington: An Archive of James Bond Treasures is up for Sale

Blockbuster Set of Original James Bond Screenplays, Film Scripts and Story Boards to go on Sale for £500,000 to celebrate the Iconic Spy Film Franchise 60th Anniversary   The collection of approx...

Ashley Tisdale Reignites the Controversy Over Books as Decor

Ashley Tisdale Reignites the Controversy Over Books as Decor

“These bookshelves, I have to be honest, actually did not have books in it a couple of days ago. I had my husband go to a bookstore. I was like, ‘You need to get 400 books.’ Obviously my husband is...

Five New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Five New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month we review five new catalogues from booksellers. Parisian bookseller Michel Bouvier has a catalogue of books and autographs. Whitmore Rare Books presents a collection of fine literature. ...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Bibliotheca Brookeriana:
    A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M
    18 October 2024
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Herodianus Syrus, Herodiani Historiarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1524, Parisian binding for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, ca. 1540
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Musaeus, Opusculum de Herone et Leandro, Venice, Aldo, 1495 (Greek text), interleaved with 1497–1498 (Latin text), English olive morocco by Charles Lewis, the Botfield copy
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Horatius Flaccus, Horatius, Venice, Aldo, 1501, Bolognese brown goatskin (between 1501 and 1503), arms of Mino Rossi and illuminated initials throughout
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Lucretius, De rerum natura, Venice, Aldo, 1500, English early eighteenth-century red morocco, the Fletcher copy
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Dante, Le terze rime, Venice, Aldo, 1502, illuminated, contemporary Bolognese morocco binding
  • Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: CATESBY, MARK. 1683-1749. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and their Territories. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: ADAMS ON HIS PEAR TREES AND A LOST PORTRAIT BY SALEM ARTIST HANNAH CROWNINSHIELD. ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: EARLIEST MAP DEVOTED TO NORTH AMERICA. FORLANI, PAULO. fl.1560-1571. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: HAMILTON DEFENDS THE CONSTITUTION. HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. 1757-1804. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION BROADSIDE. Boston, September 14, 1768. $5,000 - $8,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: ONE OF THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATIONS OF A SURGICAL PROCEDURE. BARTHOLOMAEUS ANGLICUS. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: RICHARD FEYNMAN'S ANNOTATED COPY, WITH TWO EARLY FEYNMAN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN COMPUTING. TURING, ALAN MATHISON. 1912-1954. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: FINE OIL PORTRAIT OF ALBERT EINSTEIN BY EUGEN SPIRO. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: PENICILLIN MOLD MEDALLION INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER FLEMING. FLEMING, ALEXANDER. 1881-1955. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: APPLE "TWIGGY" MACINTOSH PROTOTYPE USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMONSTRATION SOFTWARE. $80,000 - $120,000
  • Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24:
    A Superb Extra-illustrated Copy of Nicolay and Hay’s Work About Lincoln. $50,000 – 70,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24:
    The First Volume of De Bry's Great Voyages, Thomas Hariot's Description of Virginia. $50,000 – 70,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24:
    An autographed cabinet card of Custer as lieutenant colonel. From his last sitting. $800 – 1,200.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24:
    The Congressional Committee, Lincoln's Funeral Springfield Illinois, 3 May 1865. $4,000 – 6,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25:
    A remarkable ninth plate daguerreotype of an interracial couple. $30,000 – 50,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25:
    What may be the earliest known images of an identified plantation and enslaved African Americans posed with their owner. $20,000 – 30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25:
    Through Tickets to All Principal Points West Via Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad For Sale at This Office. $500 – 700.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25:
    15th New York Infantry / Regiment of Engineers GAR regimental colors. Ca 1880. $1,500 – 2,500.
  • Jeschke Jádi
    Auction 153
    Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1556. Senghor, Les Élégies Majeures. Geneve 1978.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1572. Lew Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. First Edition, Moscow, 1878.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 49. Petrarca. Das Gluecksbuch, Augsburg, 1536.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Auction 153
    Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1060. Immanuel Kant, Critik der reinen Vernunft. First Edition, Riga, 1781.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 585. Bonaparte, Iconografia della fauna Italica. Rome, 1832f.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 548. Robert Fludd. Utriusque cosmi maioris, Frankfurt, 1617f.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Auction 153
    Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1496. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 571. Christian von Wolff. Works, Halle 1741f.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 969. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Dekorationen innerer Raeume. Berlin 1874.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Auction 153
    Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1457. Goethe. Das Tagebuch. Print on Vellum. Berlin, Officina Serpentis. 1934.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1316. Tolouse-Lautrec. Dessinateur. Duhayon binding, 1948.
    Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 30. Michael de Hungaria. Sermones praedicabiles, Strasbourg, 1494.
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