Rare Book Monthly Articles - July - 2025 Issue

Richard Murian - A Respected Friend has Passed Away

Richard Murian - A Respected Friend has Passed Away

Richard Murian recently slipped away at 87. An active Arizona book dealer over much of his life, he was a friendly and reliable source who bought and sold stock and provided help to those who posed complex bibliographical questions.   Richard was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, on September 17, 1937. He lived in a small apartment with his mother, but books were always present. He would go on to earn several degrees, work as a librarian, and in an unusual step for a bookseller, also serve as a minister. Minister isn't the highest paying job, so he sold scholarly books on the side. That b...

Court Upholds Removal of Books from Library

Court Upholds Removal of Books from Library

Opponents of library censorship lost an important case we have been following the past two years from rural Llano, Texas. A group of citizens petitioned the county commissioners with a list of 17 b...

The ALA Fair at Philly

The ALA Fair at Philly

June 30, 2025.  As I write this note the ALA’s (American Library Association) annual fair is wrapping up in Philadelphia. Soon visitors and exhibitors will make their high-speed descent down the es...

Oscar Wilde Finally Gets His Library Pass Restored

Oscar Wilde Finally Gets His Library Pass Restored

It's been a long time since Oscar Wilde has been able to read a book at the British Library. Of course, a major reason is that he is dead, as he has been for over a century. However, there is a rea...

Thirteenth Amendment and Emancipation Proclamation Sold at Sotheby's for Combined $18.1 Million

Thirteenth Amendment and Emancipation Proclamation Sold at Sotheby's for Combined $18.1 Million

Copies of two of the most important documents in American history brought in record prices at Sotheby's June 26. One was a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln ...

John Shelton Reed: Where have the copies gone?

John Shelton Reed: Where have the copies gone?

John Shelton Reed (born 1942) is an American sociologist and essayist, author or editor of 23 books, most of them dealing with contemporary America. And at 82 he still has some projects to keep him...

Annual Newtown Booth Library Sale Set for July 11-15

Annual Newtown Booth Library Sale Set for July 11-15

Coming soon is one of the biggest and most successful book sales in the entire country. It's time for the annual C.H. Booth Library Sale. This is the one the Boston Globe called “one of the largest...

2025 Detroit Book Fair

2025 Detroit Book Fair

2025 Detroit Book Fair Detroit Festival of Books, Sunday, July 20th, has expanded to over 250 book vendors from 15 different states and Canada. Matching its earlier attendance records, the upcomi...

So You Want To Be A Bookseller? 

So You Want To Be A Bookseller? 

Most people know there is no standard path to becoming a bookseller. Some people, like this writer, are born into it; others work at a shop or library or buy too many books, or sell for a while on ...

Chatbots such as ChatGPT Have Won the First Round Against Authors

Chatbots such as ChatGPT Have Won the First Round Against Authors

In the first court ruling of the legality of using copyrighted books to create answers for chatbots such as ChatGPT, the bots have won and the authors lost. The chatbots need to have access to huge...

Vast Amounts of New Data from Books Being Made Available to AI Chatbox Programs like ChatGPT

Vast Amounts of New Data from Books Being Made Available to AI Chatbox Programs like ChatGPT

A large source of additional information for AI (artificial intelligence) chatbox programs, like ChatGPT or Microsoft's Llama, has been opened. Those are the online search programs that answer just...

Would you Like to Live in a Library? This Library-House is For Sale.

Would you Like to Live in a Library? This Library-House is For Sale.

Would you like to live in a library? What could be more of a dream for the avid book-reader! Well, there is one for sale now, and it is one of classic construction, no less. It is a Carnegie Librar...

The World's Oldest Auction House is Combining with One Almost as Old

The World's Oldest Auction House is Combining with One Almost as Old

The World's oldest auction house has undertaken a major expansion by acquiring one of its closest competitors in terms of age. Stockholms Auctionsverk has acquired Uppsala Auctionskammare. Both of ...

The Severed Head of Princess Lamballe Bouncing from Book to Book

The Severed Head of Princess Lamballe Bouncing from Book to Book

Princess Lamballe was Queen Marie-Antoinette’s close friend, who was put to death during the Révolution. After reading about her terrible execution, I decided to follow her bouncing severed head fr...

Twenty-two New England Auction Firms with Distinctive Offerings

Twenty-two New England Auction Firms with Distinctive Offerings

This list shows 22 auction houses doing business in five Northeastern states whose records are archived by RareBookHub.com  It is not comprehensive, but as a survey of New England auction houses it...

Four New Dealer Catalogues Reviewed for July

Four New Dealer Catalogues Reviewed for July

This month we review four new dealer catalogues. The William Reese Company offers new acquisitions in Americana. David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books also has a new selection of material in the f...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Album Containing Four Signed Photographs of Albert Einstein, With Eleven Additional Einstein Photographs, From His Journey to Japan Aboard the S.S. Kitano Maru, 1922. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Fred Freeman. Illustration of the Channel Tunnel’s British Portal (Presumably at Folkestone), ca. 1958. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Wolfgang Kurt Hermann Panofsky Group of Awards. Pief Panofsky's 1961 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, National Medal of Science, Enrico Fermi Award, and Others. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Seymour Cray; Cray-3. Manuscript Cray-3 Logbook, 1989-90. — The Only Significant Cray Manuscript to Come to Auction. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.

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