Rare Book Monthly Articles - November - 2016 Issue

Barry Ruderman: ABAA, lost without his maps

Barry was born in Rialto, California, April 23, 1962.  He attended Eisenhower High School (1980), the University of California, Riverside (BS in Economics, 1984) and the University of San Diego School of Law (Juris Doctorate, 1987). From age 8-13, he ran track and cross-country.  Thereafter, he played soccer for his high school and at UC Riverside, leaving him with a continuing passion for national and international play.  Even today when others are asleep he can sometimes still be found cheering European competitions in the middle of the night. He practiced Commercial Insolvency Law fro...

Old Books / New Editions. Part II.

Welcome to this second installment in my three-part essay series on new editions of 17th-century women writers. This second essay discusses Alice Eardley's edition (2014) of an unusual, uncanonical...

A Conviction and Life Sentence for Bookseller's Killer

Michael Danaher, a 50-year-old unemployed man from Peterborough, UK, has been convicted of the murder of Oxford bookseller Adrian Greenwood, 42. After a three-week trial, it took the jury less than...

Robert Fleck: 1947 - 2016

We do not mourn the turning of leaves in fall neither do we feel their final passage from glorious life to cold earth.  We do not mourn but we remember, their sound in the trees, the rustle of leav...

Baseball Card Sets New Record Price at $3.12 Million

Rising prices in paper ephemera were confirmed once again last month with another new record set for the price of a baseball card. And once again, the honored ballplayer was the man they called "Ho...

Orwell Values Soar As Dystopia Closes In

George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair) is one of the few mid-20th century writers who has easily crossed over into the new century and also seen his literary reputation and monetary values rise. He...

Elections Matter

In the United States we have seen a decline in literacy over the past forty years as the emphasis in education has moved from quality of learning to test taking.   For processes that require a stro...

Daniel Crouch Rare Books Opens New York Gallery

Daniel Crouch Rare Books of London has announced the opening of a gallery in New York on November 1. The gallery is located at 24 East 64th Street. Hours will run from 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Monday...

AbeBooks Adds "Collections," Where Sellers Can Compile Catalogues of Ephemeral and Highly Targeted Material

AbeBooks has added a new section to their website and it represents an expansion of the material the site is offering on behalf of its dealers. It's no secret the book market is not as robust as it...

Nov 8 & 9: Round 2 for La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé

A little less than a year ago I wrote an auction preview for the first sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé, which is the collection of French industrialist and co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent ...

Nov 22-25: Bubb Kuyper's semi-annual auction of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings approaches

At Rare Book Hub, we try to include in our Upcoming Auctions all auction houses whose material is relevant to our focus on rare books, maps, and ephemera. That means houses of varying sizes from al...

Nov 22: Rare Books, Autographs and Photographs at Doyle New York

Ted Ripley-Duggan, Vice-President of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Doyle New York, has a habit of preparing auction summaries for Rare Book Monthly that are more thorough than our normal auction pr...

Persian Letters... Part 2. A Story of Follow-Up Literature, Some Authentic, Some Fake

I put a teacher of French literature at a loss the other day, talking about Voltaire’s Candid. “Are you serious?” I asked. “You never knew that Candid, getting tired of retirement, eventually left ...

eCatalogues: the future has arrived

Tis’ the season to be jolly   From a distance the rare book business seems to be very similar to what it was twenty-five years ago but a closer look suggests not much is the same.  The Internet h...

AbeBooks Top 10 Highest Prices for the Summer of 2016

AbeBooks has released the top 10 most expensive prices paid on their listing site for the three months ending in September. AbeBooks has been selling many related ephemeral items at the top of late...

Bookplates 1480-Present on Display at the Rosenbach

Twenty-five years after the invention of the first printed book, there appeared the first known example of an intimately connected printed ephemeral item – the bookplate. The bookplate is the subje...

11 New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

For November we review 11 new bookseller catalogues. This month's selection has an international flavor, reflective of the fact that the internet has broken down national borders when it comes to t...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Isaac Newton on chemistry and matter, and alchemy, Autograph Manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," 3 pp, after 1674. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Exceptionally rare first printing of Plato's Timaeus. Florence, 1484. $50,000 - $80,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: On the Philosophy of Self-Interest: Adam Smith's copy of Helvetius's De l'homme, Paris, 1773. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: "Magical Calendar of Tycho Brahe" - very rare hermetic broadside. Engraved by Merian for De Bry. c.1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Author's presentation issue of Einstein's proof of Relativity, "Erklärung der Perihelbewegung des Merkur aus der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie." 1915. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: First Latin edition of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Paris, 1520. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: De Broglie manuscript on the nature of matter in quantum physics, 3 pp, 1954. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Tesla autograph letter signed on electricty and electromagnetic theory. 1894. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Heinrich Hertz scientific manuscript on his mentor Hermann Von Helmholtz, 1891. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: The greatest illustrated work in Alchemy: Micheal Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. Oppenheim, 1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Illustrated Alchemical manuscript, a Mysterium Magnum of the Rosicurcians, 18th-century. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Rare Largest Paper Presentation Copy of Newton's Principia, London, 1726. The third and most influential edition. $60,000 - $90,000
  • Doyle, May 1: Thomas Jefferson expresses fears of "a war of extermination" in Saint-Dominigue. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An exceptional presentation copy of Fitzgerald's last book, in the first issue dust jacket. $25,000 to $35,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The rare first signed edition of Dorian Gray. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The Prayer Book of Jehan Bernachier. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Van Dyck's Icones Principum Virorum Doctorum. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The magnificent Cranach Hamlet in the deluxe binding by Dõrfner. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, May 1: A remarkable unpublished manuscript of a voyage to South America in 1759-1764. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Bouchette's monumental and rare wall map of Lower Canada. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An rare original 1837 abolitionist woodblock. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An important manuscript breviary in Middle Dutch. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An extraordinary Old Testament manuscript, circa 1250. $20,000 to $30,000.
  • 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

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions