• 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
  • 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.

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2019 Issue

Patrick McGahern Books Offers Books from the John Bockstoce Arctic Library

The Arctic.

Patrick McGahern Books has published Part I of a catalogue of Books from the Library of John Bockstoce - The Arctic, including Alaska, Siberia, Inuit, Early Voyages, Hakluyt Society, Greenland, Labrador, Yukon. John Bockstoce is someone who certainly would know Arctic bibliography well. He is himself an Arctic explorer, one who has been sailing to the far northern reaches of the Earth for the past half century. He has written numerous books about what he has found, which you can readily find on the internet, but not in this catalogue. This selection from his library consists of books written by others who visited the far north over many centuries, those who shared his fascination with a land whose elements have made exploration a challenge. Here are some of these books.

 

Bockstoce is known for traveling the Northwest Passage, the long sought shipping route through Arctic waters north of the Canadian mainland, though he was not the first. Actually, many people tried to find the route for centuries and sailed various portions of it, but ice and narrow straits made the route elusive to explorers, though many gave their lives trying. Robert McClure finally found a complete route in 1850, but could not travel through it as parts were icebound. A complete voyage was not achieved until early in the 20th century, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen finally made it all the way. Here is his account, published in 1908: The Northwest Passage. Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Gjoa" 1903-1907. Amundsen was not an established explorer yet when he purchased the Gjoa, a 30-year-old ship, and with a crew of six set out be find the elusive route. That he did, but it was hardly the practical shipping route long sought. It took four years to make the journey, and larger ships could not have made it. Ironically, climate change is making for longer summers and the route may become a useful alternative to the Panama Canal if nothing is done to stop the increasing temperatures in the years ahead. Four years after returning home, Amundsen set out on the journey for which he is even better known. In 1911, he became the first person to reach the South Pole. Item 4. Priced at CA $1,800 (Canadian dollars, or approximately $1,353 in U.S. dollars).

 

Reversing chronological order, next we go back to one of the earliest attempts to discover a Northwest Passage. It didn't get very far. Sir Humphrey Gilbert has something of a mixed reputation. He became a "sir" for fighting rebels in Ireland. His methods were brutal, beheading people as a terroristic threat, killing women and children on the grounds that by preventing them from preparing food the rebel men would starve. Queen Elizabeth was not particularly bothered by his tactics. Gilbert became a Member of Parliament, and as such he pushed for exploration to find a Northwest passage to China. He believed it would give England a trade advantage over their archrival, Spain. However, he was a miserable seaman. His first mission of seven ships failed when they were turned back by storms. A later voyage filled with less-than worthy seafarers did take him to Newfoundland, which he claimed for the British crown. It was to be the first British settlement in America, though Gilbert did little to settle it. He quickly ran out of supplies and had to head back to England. He never made it, his ship sinking into the sea in 1583. Item 32 is The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. With an Introduction by David Beers Quinn. This is a 1940 publication by the Hakluyt Society. CA $200 (US $150).

 

Perhaps the most noted of the Northwest Passage and Arctic explorers was Sir John Franklin. He made several trips to the Canadian Arctic, but is most remembered for his last, and that was famous because it led to one of the greatest manhunts in history. He and his men departed England in 1845 and were never heard from again. It led to countless search missions, some financed by the British Admiralty, others privately funded through the urging of Franklin's wife. It took 15 years before their fate was determined. They were iced in, ran low on supplies, attempted to travel overland to rescue, but everyone perished from the cold or starvation in the attempt. One of the earliest rescue missions was headed by William Hulme Hooper and William John Samuel Pullen. Unlike most Franklin rescue missions, this one started from the Pacific side of the continent. Hooper and Pullen started from Alaska and headed east as far as the Mackenzie River. They then traveled upriver, wintering over, traveling back down the Mackenzie and east to Cape Bathurst, the northern most tip of continental Canada. They later returned back up the Mackenzie and overland to New York and home to England. Their mission ran from 1849-1851, and by the time they made it back to England, Hooper was seriously ill. Unable to do much else, Hooper wrote his account, Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski, with Incidents of an Arctic Boat Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. It was published in 1853. Hooper died the following year. Item 42. CA $2,500 (US $1,881).

 

While explorers had for centuries searched for a passage north of the Canadian mainland, and some had ventured farther north toward the North Pole, much of northern mainland Canada remained unknown until much later to everyone besides the small number of natives who lived there. The area between Hudson Bay and Great Slave Lake to the west is a vast territory that was virtually unknown when the Canadian Geological Survey sent brothers Joseph and James Tyrrell out to explore the land in 1893. They started at Edmonton, traveling northeast, following the Athabasca River and others to the Wholdaia Lakes, where they found the Dubawnt River. They figured it must lead either to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean. It took another 500-plus miles before they knew it ended where they wanted to go - Hudson Bay. It exits at Chesterfield Inlet, from which the brothers traveled south 400 miles to Churchill and overland another 800 miles to Winnipeg. Item 89 is their account, written by James Tyrrell, Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada: A Journey of 3200 Miles by Canoe and Snowshoe Through the Hudson Bay Region. Including a List of Plants Collected on the Way, a Vocabulary of Eskimo Words, and a Map Showing the Route of the Expedition. This is the 1908 third (and best) edition of a book first published in 1897. CA $250 (US $188).

 

This doesn't sound like a book about an Arctic explorer: The Love-Life of Dr. Kane; Containing the Correspondence and a History of the Acquaintance, Engagement, and Secret Marriage between Elisha K. Kane and Margaret Fox. With facsimiles of Letters and her Portrait. But it is. Elisha Kent Kane was an Arctic explorer of the middle of the 19th century, an American hero. He took part in two searching expeditions for Franklin, both sponsored by American shipping magnate Henry Grinnell. Kane was a physician, serving as medical officer on the First Grinnell Expedition, and was put in command of the Second Grinnell Expedition. They did not find Franklin, although they did locate one of their campsites. Margaret "Maggie" Fox was one of the three claimed spiritualist Fox sisters. Starting as a prank when Maggie and her younger sister Kate were children, they developed a means of supposedly communicating with a peddler who they alleged had been murdered in their house. It was known as "rapping," but not what is known as rapping today. It was mysterious knocking sounds that were heard when they asked the spirit questions, the number of raps signifying yes, no, or letters. Many people attended their for-money seances, including Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, even P. T. Barnum. It's not clear about all of them, but New York Herald Publisher and later presidential candidate Greeley was a true believer.

 

For some unknown reason, Kane went to one of their seances in Philadelphia. He was immediately taken in by Maggie. Not by her spiritualism - he wasn't fooled by that. He just fell in love with her and she with him. This was not a perfect romance. He wanted her to quit the fake spiritualist stuff, which was not unreasonable. However, he was from a refined, substantial background and she was not. He had no doubt that she was grossly inferior to him and did not belong with a man of his stature. In one of his "love letters," he writes, "...you are not worthy of a permanent regard from me. You could never lift yourself up to my thoughts and my objects; I could never bring myself down to yours." Not the most romantic words ever written. They would briefly pull away, but immediately draw back together. He wished to get married, but his family strongly disapproved. They were sort of engaged for several years. Then, shortly before a speaking tour he made of England, she said they were secretly married, her sisters and a couple of neighbors witnessing a Quaker wedding. Kane was already in poor health. It got worse in England. His doctor sent him directly to Havana for a cure, but he died there, just 37 years old. They never saw each other again. Kane left his assets to his family, but Maggie and the witnesses claimed that a special $5,000 bequest to his lawyer brother was intended for her. They fought for years, finally settled in return for Fox turning over the letters to a third party. She did, they didn't pay, she reclaimed the letters and published this book in 1866. Whether they were actually married remains uncertain. Years later, just a few years before she died, Maggie admitted the seances had been a fraud, the rapping coming from two of the sisters "cracking" their toe joints and other such tricks with their legs. Item 49. CA $400 (US $301).

 

Patrick McGahern Books may be reached at 613-230-2277 or books@mcgahernbooks.ca. Their website is www.mcgahernbooks.ca.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    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.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    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.
  • 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

Review Search

Archived Reviews

Ask Questions