Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2023 Issue

Old Maps.com becomes part of our family

Old Maps.com becomes part of our family

Rare Book Hub is simply the latest effort to aggregate bibliographic and transactional history of collectible books and paper.  Such efforts have long been necessary to focus and update the field’s understanding about books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera.  Old Maps, for more than forty years, has provided perspective about collectible maps and Curt and Marti Griggs has accepted our offer to have their history and scholarship added to ours.   One hundred and seventy-five years ago the world of collectible paper took wing when advances in literacy, printing, and papermaking turned random e...

OldMaps.com:  We have exciting news!

OldMaps.com: We have exciting news!

By Curt and Marti Griggs   We are retiring!  We began our love affair with antique maps nearly forty years ago.  Starting out as collectors, we transitioned into gallery owners, then acquired an ...

New Collective Biography of 14 Black Civil War Surgeons Expands Knowledge of US Racial, Medical and Military History

New Collective Biography of 14 Black Civil War Surgeons Expands Knowledge of US Racial, Medical and Military History

“Without Concealment, Without Compromise, The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons” by independent historian Jill L. Newmark is an important contribution to our knowledge of racial, medical...

AbeBooks Releases List of the Highest Prices Paid for April-June 2023

AbeBooks Releases List of the Highest Prices Paid for April-June 2023

AbeBooks, the premier website for selling old and rare books, has released the list of the twelve most expensive items purchased on their website from April-June 2023. It consists of a mix of books...

Demographics in the Book Field Have Been Changing Rapidly

Demographics in the Book Field Have Been Changing Rapidly

The book trade is an old boys' network. Booksellers are males. Collectors are men, mostly old ones. At least, that is the way it was. It has been changing, though it would be hard to claim either d...

President Obama Writes Letter of Thanks to Librarians for Standing Up for Free Speech

President Obama Writes Letter of Thanks to Librarians for Standing Up for Free Speech

In a time of increasing censorship in libraries across America, America's librarians have been at the forefront of protecting our right to free speech. It is a moral if not legal responsibility for...

Charlotte Corday, Blood in a Brochure.

Charlotte Corday, Blood in a Brochure.

This is a small brochure entitled Charlotte Corday, beheaded in Paris on July 16, 1793, and published in Paris, year 4 (1795). Our particular copy was never cut nor bound, and there are water stain...

“Junky” Old Book Taken to Antiques Road Show Turns Out to be Worth $50,000

“Junky” Old Book Taken to Antiques Road Show Turns Out to be Worth $50,000

You never know. This story is a follow-up on an account from the Antiques Roadshow where a gentleman showed up with an old book by William Shakespeare. It was published in 1655, old but not extreme...

He Wrote 100 Books in Nine Months

He Wrote 100 Books in Nine Months

Tim Boucher is a Canadian writer who has been toiling in obscurity for a couple of decades before hitting the wires recently with an odd achievement. He wrote 100 books in about 9 months. Not even ...

Briefs – August Book Events - Some Fairs and Fests, Mostly Free, Large and Small

Briefs – August Book Events - Some Fairs and Fests, Mostly Free, Large and Small

From the Library of Congress National Book Festival to the Edinburgh Book Fair, August brings some events that book lovers in America, the UK and Canada will find enjoyable. Here are eight diverse ...

Morgan The Magnificent:  The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913)

Morgan The Magnificent: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913)

In the present era book collectors can collect books as well manuscripts, maps and ephemera on their own.  In the receding past, while all those possibilities existed, knowledge and expertise were ...

A Website Owner with 150 Million Viewers in the U. S. Looks to Publish Books

A Website Owner with 150 Million Viewers in the U. S. Looks to Publish Books

The book publishing world may be on the cusp of another major change. We have seen a few in the past couple of decades. First there was online selling, Amazon leading the charge. Then came electron...

Missing 120 Years, A Library Book Finally Makes Its Way Home

Missing 120 Years, A Library Book Finally Makes Its Way Home

Another case of a long overdue library book being returned emerged last month, though this one was longer than most. It was returned over 119 years late. It's safe to say that the anonymous person ...

One New Catalogue Reviewed This Month

One New Catalogue Reviewed This Month

It is well known that August is a favorite month for vacations, particularly among those of greater means who get to choose their time. The result is the number of catalogues mailed at this time of...

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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