Rare Book Monthly

Articles - August - 2011 Issue

A Whale of a Sale

- by Bruce E. McKinney

Whaling Journal [lower right] sold in 40 seconds

The C. H. Booth Library Fair has done it again. A great spirit, plenty of volunteers, an energetic audience and voila you have a success. The mystery is in the elbow grease and good thinking.

In the run-up to the fair the promotional committee put out the word that a great book would be available for a great price to the first person coming through the door who called out “I’ll take it.” So how long did it take to sell this book? Forty seconds or thereabouts.

The Book? A whaling journal – dating to 1833-1836 kept by Second Mate William E. Percival offered for $3,500.

To be first in you had to be first in line. To be first in line you needed to line up the night before. Congratulations to the buyer and congratulations to the C. H. Booth Library Fair Committee.

The future of books is debated but so long as imagination is employed they who love books will materialize, even at 1:00 am to be first in line to buy books and manuscripts. For millions of people books are magic.

Rare Book Monthly

Swann Auction Galleries: Jean de Mandeville, Reysen und Wanderschafften durch das Gelobte Land, Strassburg, 1488. Sold for $106,250.

Swann Auction Galleries: José González Cabrera Bueno, Navegación Especulativa, y Práctica, Manila, 1734. Sold for $55,000.

Swann Auction Galleries: Francis W. Winton, manuscript on pow-wows with indigenous Canadians, 1881. Sold for $65,000.

Swann Auction Galleries: Louise Bourgeois, He Disappeared Into Complete Silence, portfolio with complete text & 9 engravings, 1947. Sold for $413,000.

Swann Auction Galleries: Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, first American edition, Boston, 1929. Sold for $9,375.

Swann Auction Galleries: Sir William Russell Flint, gouache & watercolor illustration for Homer's Odyssey, 1924. Sold for $22,500.

Swann Auction Galleries: Kurt Vonnegut, archive of 12 letters, signed to his family, 6 illustrated, 1930s-40s. Sold for $12,500.

Swann Auction Galleries: Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, first edition, presentation copy, signed & inscribed, London, 1893. Sold for $27,500.

Swann Auction Galleries: Emil Cardinaux, St. Moritz, 1918. Sold for $17,500.

Swann Auction Galleries: R.J. Waters, 3 panoramas of the San Francisco earthquake & fire, 1906. Sold for $21,250.

Swann Auction Galleries: Album with 200 cartes-de-visite, including images by Felice Beato, John Thompson & F.W. Sutton, Japan & China, 1863-69. Sold for $35,000.

Swann Auction Galleries: Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, Fishkill, NY, December 1776. Sold for $40,000.
19th Century Shop: Charles Darwin on sexuality and the transmission of hereditary characteristics: Autograph Letter Signed to Lawson Tait. Down, 17 January [1877].

19th Century Shop: MILTON, JOHN. Paradise Lost. A Poem written in ten books. London: 1667. A very rare example with the contemporary binding untouched and with a 1667 title page.

19th Century Shop: Hamilton secures the ratification of the Constitution: The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New-York, assembled at Poughkeespsie, on the 17th June, 1788.

19th Century Shop: The social contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”: ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES. Principes du Droit Politique [Du Contract Social]. Amsterdam: Michel Rey, 1762

19th Century Shop: “The first English textbook on geometrical land-measurement and surveying”: BENESE, RICHARD. This Boke Sheweth the Maner of Measurynge All Maner of Lande…
Bonhams New York: Fine Books and Manuscripts Including the World of Hilary Knight. December 5, 2018

Bonhams, Dec 5: KNIGHT, HILARY. The Original Portrait of Eloise that Hung at the Plaza Hotel. $100,000 to 150,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: WARHOL, ANDY. "Iced Lemon Delight," an Original Watercolor Presented to Hilary Knight's cat, Phoebe $8,000 to 12,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: SENDAK, MAURICE. Where the Wild Things Are. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED with drawing to Hilary Knight in the month following publication. $10,000 to 15,000

Bonhams New York: Fine Books and Manuscripts Including the World of Hilary Knight. December 5, 2018

Bonhams, Dec 5: NOLAND, KENNETH. Original circle painting, untitled, acrylic and ink on cloth, for cover of monograph $8,000 to 12,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: TOULOUSE-LAUTREC. Histoires Naturelles, 1899. With 22 original lithographs. $10,000 to 15,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. A Collection of Poems, [1711]. The first authoritative and complete collected Sonnets.$15,000 to 20,000

Bonhams New York: Fine Books and Manuscripts Including the World of Hilary Knight. December 5, 2018

Bonhams, Dec 5: LONDON, JACK. The Call of the Wild. 1903. First edition, first state jacket. $2,000 to 3,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: FROST, ROBERT. Autograph Manuscript of "Build Soil," 12 pp, 1932-1936. $15,000 to 20,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: GOULD, GLENN. Glenn Gould's extensively annotated copy of Bach's Goldberg Variations $100,000 to 150,000

Bonhams New York: Fine Books and Manuscripts Including the World of Hilary Knight. December 5, 2018

Bonhams, Dec 5: PLATH, SYLVIA. EARLY Autograph Letter Signed, about her beginnings as a writer, Northampton, MA, 1951. $7,000 to 10,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: HOUDINI, HARRY. A collection of 11 cast iron shackle and lock items from Houdini's personal collection. $20,000 to 30,000

Bonhams, Dec 5: M4 ENGIMA MACHINE, with very rare RARE HYDRA KEY ENVELOPE. $400,000 to 600,000

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