Few have lived through the horrors that 13-year-old Emeline Trimble survived in 1860. She and her family set out from Wisconsin for Oregon, but of the twelve, only young Emeline would make it alive. Her traveling party was attacked by Indians, the few survivors scattered, and when regrouped would battle starvation for seven weeks. Like the better-known Donner party, survivors of what is known as the Utter-Myers party would be forced to resort to cannibalism. Young Miss Trimble would survive the horror and many years later, now married with the name Emeline Fuller, she would write the only first-hand account of this tragedy, Left by the Indians. The Story of My Life. It was published in 1892. $3,000. For anyone interested in learning more about this sad and horrific journey, there’s an article on Rootsweb at www.rootsweb.com/~orgenweb/bios/emelinetrimble.html.

A man who had a better experience in the wilderness than Miss Trimble was Henry David Thoreau. Item 86 is a first edition of his famed Walden. It is inscribed by Daniel Ricketson, himself a naturalist and author of a history of New Bedford, Massachusetts, as well as a good and well-respected friend of Thoreau. $15,000.

French playwright Jean Genet rarely gave interviews, so the typescripts and galley proofs of item 35 are remarkable. Genet did consent to an interview in 1964 with Madeleine Gobell with, of all publications, Playboy Magazine. Here’s a purchase you can make which will show that you really do “read” Playboy for the articles. There is considerably more information in this interview material than eventually made it to the Playboy article, so those with an interest in Genet will undoubtedly find it fascinating. For example, Genet speaks at length of his relationship with Jackie Maglia, a racecar driver, comments which never made it to the final draft. $5,500.

Item 103 is another set of manuscript material from a Playboy interview. The year was 1964 and this time the interviewer was Alex Haley, later to be known for “Roots.” His subject was Martin Luther King. In a telegram to the Playboy editor Haley states, “King is so uncontrollably deluged that with me camped in his shop four days he has scarcely been able to give me two minutes. Indeed the man scarcely sleeps…” $4,250.