Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - January - 2005 Issue

Maps, Books, and Manuscripts From Asher Rare Books

A unique collection of handwritten alphabets.

A unique collection of handwritten alphabets.


For those interested in criminal justice, we recommend Practijcke ende Hantboeck in Criminele Saken...by Joos de Damhouder. This is the second Dutch edition of this popular 16th century work, published in 1561. Along with the text, Asher, from their website, notes that it contains 56 illustrations of crimes, prosecutions and punishments, including, "graphically illustrated...murder, robbery, arson, rape and other sexual crimes, various crimes against the church, suicide, bribery, stealing cattle, loading dice, forging coins, torturing people, waging war, dike breaking and almost any imaginable offence, including emptying chamber pots out the window onto unsuspecting passers-by!" All of those crimes are forgivable except the last. I do not know how people lived in cities in those days. Item 11. €9,500 (US $12,726).

Johannes Kentmann was both a physician and mineralogist, which suited him ideally to author Calculorum qui in Corpore... This is a 1565 book about stones in the human body. It includes both naturally occurring stones and swallowed foreign objects which were never meant to be eaten. Eleven woodcuts show 30 objects found within various people. Asher notes that this book provided the first detailed account of gallstones. Someone had to be first. Item 23. €4,000 (US $5,356).

Item 39 is a small pamphlet printed by Spanish printer Juan de Cabrera Seville in 1624. He was celebrating a victory in Dalmatia (now part of Croatia) in the ongoing wars against the Ottoman Empire that seemed to never end. In the pamphlet, he provides a drawing of a being meant to represent the Ottomans. It has three horns, three eyes, donkey ears and backward feet. One can assume the depiction was not meant to be complimentary. €3,850 (US $5,156).

Item 30 is a most interesting manuscript of exotic alphabets. Headed Variorum Alphabetorum, it was created in the Netherlands around 1680. It includes carefully hand-drawn characters for numerous languages, including Latin, Dutch, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, Armenian, Greek, Bengali, and many more. The writer has even added Utopian and another imaginary alphabet. See the image on this page. €12,500 (US $16,714).

You may find Asher Rare Books' listings on their website at www.asherbooks.com or call them at +31 (0)255 52 38 39.

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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