Rare Book Monthly
Articles - January - 2004 Issue
A Collection for the Ages<br>From The 19th Century Shop
Several of the items offered by the 19th Century Shop.
For those who collect U.S. presidents, there’s a signed presentation copy of Message of the President of the United States by a man who won’t make it to Mt. Rushmore, Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes, by all accounts an honest and decent man, attained the presidency on a corrupt trade. Trailing in the popular and electoral vote, but with leader Samuel Tilden still a vote short of an electoral majority, a deal was made between Republicans and southern Democrats to give the election to Republican Hayes. As part of the deal, remaining federal troops were removed from the South and Reconstruction came to a close. Hopes for equal rights for Blacks came to an end. Oddly, this was not Hayes’ intention. Hayes attempted to steer a moderate course at a time when decisive actions were needed. In this 1880 message, Hayes explains his veto of a military appropriations bill on the grounds that the Democratic-controlled congress had added riders detrimental to the enforcement of voting rights in the South. $1,250.
This catalogue contains several interesting items in the field of science. There’s a copy of April 1949’s Bell System Technical Journal, including the article Physical Principles Involved in Transistor Action by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. This was the first comprehensive description of the transistor and semiconductors. Bardeen and Brattain would go on to share the Nobel Prize for physics in 1956. $1,500. There’s a presentation copy of Jonas Salk’s Survival of the Wisest, signed by Salk to Buckminster Fuller. $2,500. And, there’s a 1904 postcard from Albert Einstein to friends in Serbia announcing the birth of his first son. $3,500.
For those more interested in the social and economic sciences, we have the manuscript, or typescript, of John Maynard Keynes’ essay Economic Consequences of England’s Decision (it’s 1931 decision to drop the gold standard). The 8-page manuscript includes numerous changes and corrections in Keynes’ hand. $35,000. There’s a signed presentation copy of Thomas Robert Malthus’ Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time offered. We can be confident that this is a one-of-a-kind inscription since it was given to the student who finished first in his class at East India College in 1830. $4,800. There’s also a signed autobiography of Sigmund Freud available. $5,000.
