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Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - April - 2009 Issue

Autographs and Signed Documents from David Schulson

A new collection of signatures from David Schulson Autographs.

A new collection of signatures from David Schulson Autographs.


By Michael Stillman

David Schulson Autographs has issued a new collection of autographs and autographed manuscripts, Catalog 139. As always, Schulson provides a wide selection of personalities, from politics, music, science, medicine, writing, art, stage and screen, and other notable professions. There is a healthy mix of American and European names to be found, with dates ranging from the 18th through the 20th century. Here are a few samples of what we found.

Item 68 is a wartime letter from Napoleon concerning food for his soldiers in Poland as they prepared for an attack on Russia. Writes the French Emperor on June 4, 1812, "My son, having learned that many of your camps are lacking in meat stores, I have just ordered 300 steer and 30,000 bales of oats be sent to you... On that note, my son, I pray that God has you in his keep." Since Napoleon's only son was one-year-old at the time, we are guessing that this letter either went to his stepson, or someone with which he was very familiar. Whoever he was, he was obviously special as he rated the lengthened signature "Napol." rather than the standard "Nap."

Here is an item that will make the flesh crawl on those who love America's second generation of great leaders and orators. Henry Clay was one of the giants of the senate in the first half of the 19th century. Along with his soaring rhetoric, he was famous as the "Great Compromiser." He tried to bring the sides together during the rancorous debate over slavery, helping to engineer the Compromise of 1850, thought at the time to resolve the issue, but in reality only making it worse, and the Civil War inevitable. Nevertheless, he tried. Along the way, he made several runs for the presidency, coming closest in 1844 as the candidate of the Whig Party (which won the elections both before and after 1844). However, Clay sounds too much like someone who compromised some of the basic principles of humanity in this 1827 letter. In it, he seeks to recoup $117 he spent on buying a slave. Saying he was led to believe the slave woman, though older, was healthy, he writes, "[I] have discovered that the said slave is entirely unsound and diseased, so much so as to be worthless..." Not much respect for human dignity in that comment. Item 22. $3,500.

Jeremy Bentham was one of the foremost proponents of utilitarianism, the philosophy that holds that the worth of something is determined by how much good it produces. It can be distinguished from beliefs that there is some inherent moral worth in actions regardless of whether they benefit anyone. Item 8 is a letter concerning practical matters by this practical philosopher. Bentham writes in 1824 that he has been "...flattering myself with the hope of having the two vacuums in my upper jaw filled up by section action..." In other words, Bentham had some serious dental problems, and he is concerned that if work is not begun soon, the "fragments" of his teeth on which he hopes repairs can be made will "share the fate of their predecessors." The letter is to James Cartwright, whom Bentham hopes has some students who can help him. $1,750.

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  • DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025 DOYLERare Books, Autographs & MapsJuly 23, 2025
    DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
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    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
  • Forum AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025 Forum AuctionsFine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper  17th July 2025
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    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
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    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.
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    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
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    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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