It's a genuine 'John Hancock' signature, even if it doesn't look like one.
By 1687, Penn was a more mature and accepting individual. His colony of Pennsylvania would attract many settlers with less conventional beliefs because of its tolerance. In that year he published, Good Advice to the Church of England, Roman Catholick, and Protestant Dissenter. Herein he argues for toleration on both religious and ethical principles. This is more the Penn we remember. Item 136. $2,500.
William Penn would go on to express even more liberal views in the mid-19th century, some 130 years after his death. Huh? You can check out his much later views in Voices from the Spirit World, Being Communications from Many Spirits. By the Hand of Isaac Post, Medium. You can also check out updated views from the likes of Washington, Jefferson, and Voltaire, as well as other early Quakers. The introduction was "written" by Benjamin Franklin. Post was an upstate New York reformer. He was deeply involved with abolitionism and women's rights, at times hosting Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth in his Rochester home. He became disillusioned with the more moderate opposition of traditional Quakers, and, with many others, split from them. Around 1850, he became a believer in Spiritualism, communicating with the dead, a movement started by two teenage sisters from nearby Hydesville. The sisters would recant their claims many years later (long after Post's death), but a belief in Spiritualism lives on. In 1851, when Post published his book, many who promoted abolition and other liberal causes also became believers in Spiritualism. Not surprisingly, the messages Post received from the long-dead Penn supported Post's views. Despite his strong antislavery principles, Post would oppose the Civil War. His Quaker pacifism prevailed. Nonetheless, he would live to see slavery abolished. Item 137. $600.
From his post-Earthly existence writings, we turn to some of Ben Franklin's earliest work. Actually, this is neither one of his writings or printings. It is even earlier than that. In 1725, young Franklin was working as a typesetter in England. He set type for the third edition of The Religion of Nature Delineated, by William Wollaston. In his autobiography, Franklin states he worked on the second edition, but evidently it must have been the third as Franklin did not begin work at Palmer's, the printer, until after the second was published. Item 71. $500.
Here is another religious text notable more for circumstances surrounding it than what is inside. The book is, A Lecture on Christ's Second Coming 70 A.D., published in Hartford in 1878. Reese describes the book as an "odd bit of revelation," and we'll go with that, never having read the book. Indeed, Reese adds that it displays the "imbalance of mind" which would lead its author, Charles Guiteau, to assassinate the President three years later. His shooting of President Garfield was also divinely inspired, at least in Guiteau's warped mind. Guiteau expected to be acquitted, but was sorely disappointed. He was hanged the following year, hardly the first religious writer to meet such a fate. However, he remains the first and only combination American Presidential assassin and author. Item 80. $400.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 1: Bob Dylan, his high school classmate's yearbook with his senior portrait, signed and inscribed to her, 1959. $10,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 4: Various entertainers, Group of 30 items, signed or inscribed, various dates. $1,500 to $2,500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 27: John Adams, Autograph Letter Signed to Benjamin Rush introducing Archibald Redford, Paris, 1783. $35,000 to $50,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 36: Robert Gould Shaw, Autograph Letter Signed to his father from Camp Andrew, Boston, 1861. $10,000 to $15,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 53: Martin Luther King Jr., Time magazine cover, signed and inscribed "Best Wishes," 1957. $5,000 to $7,500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 127: Paul Gauguin, Autograph Letter regarding payment for paintings, with woodcut letterhead, 1900. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 169: Suck: First European Sex Paper, complete group of eight issues, 1969-1974. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 173: Black Panthers, The Racist Dog Policemen Must Withdraw Immediately From Our Communities, poster, 1969. $2,000 to $3,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 187: Marc Attali & Jacques Delfau, Les Erotiques du Regard, first edition, Paris, 1968. $300 to $500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 213: Andy Warhol, Warhol's Index Book, first printing, New York, 1967. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 215: Cookie Mueller, Archive of 17 items, including 4 items inscribed and signed. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 249: Jamie Reid, The Ten Lessons / The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; Sex Pistols, chromogenic print with collage, signed, circa 1980. $20,000 to $30,000.
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
Bonhams, Apr. 8: First report outside of the colonies of the American Revolution, from American accounts. Printed broadsheet, The London Evening-Post, May 30, 1775. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce, James. The earliest typescript pages from Finnegans Wake ever to appear at auction, annotated by Joyce, 1923. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce's Ulysses, 1923, one of only seven copies known, printed to replace copies destroyed in customs. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S COPY, INSCRIBED. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, 1667. $2,000 - $3,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Bernoulli's Ars conjectandi, 1713. "... first significant book on probability theory." $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Aristotle's Politica. Oeconomica. 1469. The first printed work on political economy. $80,000 - $120,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: John Graunt's Natural and political observations...., 1662. The first printed work of epidemiology and demographics. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: William Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786. The first work to pictorially represent information in graphics. $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Anson's A Voyage Round the World, 1748. THE J.R. ABBEY-LORD WARDINGTON COPY, BOUND BY JOHN BRINDLEY. $8,000 - $12,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: La Perouse's Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde..., 1797. LARGE FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS. $8,000 - $12,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Charles Schulz original 8-panel Peanuts Sunday comic strip, 1992, pen and ink over pencil, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy as a psychiatrist. $20,000 - $30,000