Rare Book Monthly

Articles - July - 2017 Issue

July at Forum Auctions: Two sales in 10 days, two more on deck

Historically a quieter time of year in the book business, London-headquartered auction house Forum Auctions is bucking the trend by keeping the summer packed with sales: four in July, and two more in August. On offer this month is:

  1. An online sale of Cricket Books and Works on Paper, active now through July 5th.
  2. A traditional sale of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper in London on July 10th.
  3. A Forum Auctions Italy online sale of Libri Antichi e Rari ending July 13th.
  4. An online sale of Books and Works on Paper ending July 20th.

Catalogs are currently live online for the first two sales (hyperlinked above) and I’ll highlight a few lots from each below.

Beginning with the online sale of Cricket Books and Works on Paper, this specialist sale dedicated to the game of cricket contains 83 lots headlined by three of John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack, a publication the professional cricketer launched the year after he retired in 1863. Lots 80-82 are single years of Wisden’s Almanack—1896 (estimated £15,000 to £20,000), 1869 (estimated £10,000 to £15,000), and 1916 (estimated £5,000 to £6,000). These are evidently big deals in the cricketing world. An additional highlight of the sale is a complete run of Cricket Scores and Biographies of Celebrated Cricketers, vols. 1 through 16, and dating from 1862 to 2003. The set is estimated £750 to £1,000 as lot 34.

Online sales often are made online-only because of a smaller scope and/or lower overall estimates (they are after all cheaper than putting on a full-fledged live auction), but Forum’s second book sale of July, Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper, is deservedly a live sale. Topping the estimates for the 475-lot sale are four lots from varying combinations of the Brontë sisters. Lot 335, estimated £60,000 to £80,000 is a three-volume set of 1847 first editions of Emily and Anne Brontë’s first novels, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey respectively. A stated two hundred and fifty copies were printed of these first editions, and Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë’s only published novel as she died the following year.

Perhaps the most valuable single volume in the sale, lot 330, belongs to all three Brontë sisters, who in 1846 published their Poems, a collection of 61 poems, under their pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, respectively). The copy here is the first issue of the first edition of the first publication by any of the Brontës. The rarity of the book in this state is impressive: a thousand were printed by Aylott & Jones in 1846, but only two sold. Thirty-seven copies were given away to authors whom the sisters admired (and assumedly to friends and family as well), leaving 961 copies unsold. These remaining copies were purchased by the publishers Smith & Elder, who decided to reissue the work in 1848 under their name with a new title page and rebound in a green harp binding, meaning that only 39 copies of the first issue ever existed. The following lot, 331, is the Smith & Elder edition in its intermediate state—it has the green harp binding, but still bears the Aylott & Jones title page (Forum states these copies appear this way either due to binder neglect or because the Smith & Elder title page ran out)—which is also quite rare in itself. The original first issue of Poems is estimated £30,000 to £40,000, while the intermediate state in the 1848 binding is estimated £15,000 to £20,000. Adding to the value of the Aylott & Jones issue is an autograph letter signed by Charlotte Brontë addressed to the publishers discussing Poems.

Pre-dating the Brontë material by more than three centuries are two significant lots totally unrelated to one another. Claudius Galenus, also called Galen, was dubbed the “most famous physician of the Greco-Roman world whose writings have survived” by the Cambridge University Press. Lot 183 is Galen’s Opera [actual title in Greek] printed by the Aldine Press in 1525. Five folio volumes make the publication “one of the ‘biggest’ books printed” by the printers, and it is also one of the rarest of all Aldine editions with Forum stating that only two or three complete sets having been sold in the last 30 years. The set’s rarity is greatly increased by the fact that it had just a single first and last run. It is estimated £25,000 to £35,000.

The other 16th century highlight narrowly misses the cut for the incunabula descriptor. Printed in Basel in 1501 by Jacobus Wolff de Pforzheim, lot 167 is a rare illustrated edition of Aesop, which is also a first edition of Sebastian Brant’s additional 140 fables. The woodcut illustrations accompanying Brant’s works are described as “richer and more sophisticated than the rather naïve illustrations to the first part, which were based on Zainer’s cuts for the first illustrated edition” printed in Ulm around 1476. Estimated £15,000 to £20,000, Aesop’s Esopi appologi sive mythologi cum quibusdam carminum et fabularum additionibus Sebastiani Brant is a handsome folio and an early edition of one of the most famous storytellers ever.

Forum Auctions’ online sale of Cricket Books and Works on Paper is active now and ends Wednesday, July 5th, and their traditional sale of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper is scheduled for Monday, July 10th at 10:30 am British Standard Time. Both of the preceding links lead to the respective online catalogs where registration for bidding can be done. Also, don’t forget about two more online sales later in the month, Libri Antichi e Rari ending July 13th and Books and Works on Paper ending July 20th.

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    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.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    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.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    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.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    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
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    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.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    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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