Rare Book Monthly
Articles - January - 2004 Issue
A Collection for the Ages<br>From The 19th Century Shop
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For those with a literary interest, 19th Century offers a set of Henrik Ibsen first editions, including Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, and four more. $15,000. Or, you can find the earliest publication of selections from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Two essays, entitled The Iron Horse and A Poet Buying a Farm, were published in the July and August 1852 issues of Sartain’s Union Magazine. Thoreau would go on to publish this material in the book Walden two years later, while Sartain’s would fold after the August issue. Also in these volumes is the first publishing of Jules Verne in America in the article A Voyage in a Balloon. $2,200.
Turning to the political, there’s a signed manuscript draft of an editorial from famed newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. From 1933, Hearst reacts to Hitler’s takeover of Germany. He warns Americans to be vigilant in preserving their democracy, or they too may lose their liberty, “the most precious possession of mankind.” $7,500.
Finally, we turn to some documents from the second half of the 20th century. We have a signed presentation copy of Winston Churchill’s 6-volume The Second World War. $7,500. Moving from the largest to the smallest documents, there’s a ticket to the 1956 Notre Dame-Michigan State football game, signed by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and then current Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. $1,200. For fans of the theater, there’s an early mimeographed script for the original off-Broadway production of the musical Hair. $3,500. And there’s a 1962 first-day postcard from Satellite Beach, Florida, containing the signatures of all seven of the original Mercury astronauts. Included are Alan Shepard, the first American in space, Gus Grissom, the second, and John Glenn, first American in orbit. Documents containing all seven signatures are uncommon as Grissom died in a terrible launch pad fire in 1967. $9,500.
The 19th Century Shop can be found online at www.19thcenturyshop.com or reached by phone at 410-727-2665.
