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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
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Rare Book Monthly

Articles - September - 2014 Issue

Louis Mandrin vs. The Fermiers Généraux - A Political Testament

Histoire de Louis Mandrin.

As I was reading the Life of Mandrin the other day, I started to wonder why this villain (1725-1755) had become so popular a myth in France. Tracking down the hypothetical truth, I was led from one old book to another, until I reached Corinne Townley, author of La Véritable Histoire de Mandrin (The True Story of Mandrin, 2005) on the phone. “Mandrin was a very mean and violent man,” she confirmed. “But he was portrayed as a French Robin Hood because he was used as a political tool against the famous Fermiers Généraux, who collected taxes during the Ancien Régime.” Now, that put me on the right track.

 

 

A Peddling Book

 

Sign of his popularity, Louis Mandrin made it to the peddling books of the early 19th century. Usually short, they dealt with popular and light topics, as they aimed at a wide audience. They were poor quality books printed in huge quantities. Nevertheless, those dedicated to Mandrin, for instance, have become quite rare. The other day, I had to fight harder than expected to win a copy of La Vie de Mandrin printed in 1827 in Paris. It’s actually a reprint of Histoire de Louis Mandrin, attributed to Abbé Regley (Holland, 1756 for the second edition—I couldn’t spot the first one). Both editions feature a portrait of the villain as a frontispiece; but the one of 1827 is different, it looks like a charcoal drawing with Mandrin wearing a uniform and the famous hat he stole from one of his many victims. He looks handsome and serious—the book gives his physical description: “Said to be tall, with black and curly hair, Mandrin had an aquiline nose and regular features, a broad chest, and a well-shaped thigh; he was unusually strong.” To reduce the cost, the publisher turned an in-12° volume of 140 pages into an in-18° of 79 pages—a tour de force. This copy has a contemporary half-morocco binding, which is quite unusual as these books were usually sold and stored in their original wrappers—another way to cut down the price. It contains several incorrect “facts,” of course, and was probably hastily put together while the iron was hot—right after Mandrin’s execution in 1755. The idea was to attract the readers with dark and thrilling stories, but the printer made sure he didn’t hurt neither the King nor morality: “The lives of villains who have declared war to the society at large,” reads the preface, “(...) show the young persons the horrible consequences of a life of crime and vice.” Obviously, this book wasn’t the starting point of Mandrin’s good reputation.

 

A Violent Man

 

The book portrays Mandrin as a bloodthirsty psychopath. A young an innocent woman, who was looking for her lost dog, unwittingly stepped into Mandrin’s cave one day—his legendary hideout in the mountains. He tied her to a pole and undressed her totally. “He insulted and mistreated her numerous times,” reads the book. He then forced one of his reluctant men to stab her to death: “He put the knife into his hand, saying: “You’re not experienced yet, I want to instruct you. (...) See this other knife? I’ll stab you if you do not obey. (...) Stab her at the tip of her breast.” But the poor boy was too moved by his victim, so Mandrin grabbed his hand and plunged the knife into the girl’s chest. Blood spurred and the wretched victim uttered a high-pitched cry. What a dramatic scene! I found it a little bit too much, to be honest—and yet. “Mandrin’s popularity lasted less than two years, from 1753 to 1755,” said Corinne Townley. “But he was convicted many times before, and accused of several horrible crimes, including the murder of a little girl.”

 

One day, Mandrin broke into the house of one Moret, employee of the Ferme Générale, whom he knew was responsible for the arrest—and, consequently, execution—of one of his brothers. “In order to soften his aggressor, Moret presented him his 18 months old son. “You arrested my brother and you beg for mercy?” retorted the villain. “Perish, you and your child! May your entire race disappear.” He repeatedly hit them with his sword, not stopping until their cut off bodies lay in a pool of blood.” Now, that was too much—right? Well, in fact, it wasn’t either. The Jugement Souverain of May 24, 1755, that officially condemned Mandrin to death, relates this story. It took place in Mandrin’s native town of Saint Geoirs where, on his way to Switzerland, he killed the said Sigismond-Jacques Moret, employee, and a child of 18 months he was holding in his arms. According to the same document, Mandrin and his men killed over 22 persons between 1753 and 1755, including a pregnant woman. The latter was killed in Saint-Rome de Tharn after a bourgeois, or a rich merchant, had escaped through her house. The official Jugement doesn’t clearly state that Mandrin killed her himself, but the peddling book does: “Mandrin stabbed her in the belly with his bayonet. (...) Thus an infant felt the iron before even seeing the light.

 

Though people tend to consider criminals like some sort of popular heroes who revenge them from an oppressive system, this book gives no reason to consider Mandrin as a lovable rascal. “People don’t know the real story of Mandrin,” underlined Corinne Townley. “They only know about the popular myth who opposed the Ferme Générale.”

 

 

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