Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2010 Issue

Important Antiquarian Books from Peter Harrington

Exceptional works from Peter Harrington.

Exceptional works from Peter Harrington.


By Michael Stillman

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller has issued Catalogue 70, a collection of impressive works relating to economics, politics, history, law, medicine, philosophy and science, as well as other early printed books. The catalogue starts with 14 particularly notable "featured items," but the remainder of the 177 items offered are also of more than passing significance. Harrington specializes in important works and this catalogue fits the bill. Here are a few of these books.

Item 4 is a great work, but it is the provenance of this copy that makes it far more remarkable. The book is The French Revolution: a History, by Thomas Carlyle, a first American edition from 1838. Carlyle wrote this book at the urging of John Stuart Mill, after the latter determined he did not have the time to complete such a work himself. Famously, Mill's maid burned the only draft of the first volume, mistaking it for garbage, thereby forcing Carlyle to rewrite it. Carlyle presents a history of that revolution in what was then an unorthodox manner, retelling events more as a participant or witness than traditional historian. This American edition was funded and promoted by a great admirer and friend of Carlyle on the western side of the Pond - Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's promotion of the book made it a success in America, and provided Carlyle with some badly needed financial stability. It was while Emerson was promoting this work that he first met Henry David Thoreau, who would also become a good friend (Emerson was a friendly person). Emerson was something of a mentor, encouraging the young and then unknown Thoreau to write articles for a magazine, Emerson then pressing the publisher to print them. This copy of Carlyle's work is inscribed by Emerson to Thoreau. The two would exchange numerous books in the years to come, though some were not inscribed, and at most three came from Emerson in the early years of their friendship (prior to 1840). Priced at £135,000 (British pounds, or approximately $203,882 in U.S. currency).

Item 121 offers a contemporary opinion about a specific event during the French Revolution, by a once ardent supporter who, like so many others, became its victim. Americans remember Thomas Paine for his fervent support of the American Revolution, but he was equally enthusiastic about the French one, at least for a time. His strong promotion of democratic institutions in France antagonized the British, but managed to get Paine elected to the French legislature, though he spoke little of the language. However, events quickly rushed past the radical Paine, turning him into a conservative by revolutionary standards. Offered is a copy of the Opinion de Thomas Payne [sic]...Concernant Le Jugement de Louis XVI... (bound together with two other works). Paine had favored the complete overthrow of the monarchy, rather than the constitutional monarchy of 1791. However, when that overthrow occurred in 1792, Paine did not agree with the assembly that King Louis XVI should be beheaded. This is Paine's speech calling for the King to be exiled to America instead, where he would have been welcomed as a supporter of the American Revolution. Instead of saving Louis, the plea almost got Paine beheaded too. There was no sentimentality in the French Revolution. He was imprisoned, and saved from execution only because he was accidentally overlooked when his time came, enabling him to survive long enough to escape the Reign of Terror. £3,000 (US $4,529).

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025 Forum AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    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’sGeek Week2-17 July | New York Sotheby’sGeek Week2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Buzz Aldrin's FLOWN Apollo 11 Crew-Signed NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Cover. $15,000 to $20,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Lunar Surface Flown Mission Emblem Presented to Tom Stafford by John Young. $8,000 to $12,000.
    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
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    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.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Extensive Chronology of Spacecraft From Apollo to Skylab, Signed by a Member of Every Crewed Apollo Flight and the Commanders of Each Skylab Mission. $5,000 to $8,000.
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  • DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025 DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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