2012 In Review: Borders Liquidates, Sendak Dies, Digital Eats Print
- by Susan Halas
Munch's painting of the Scream sold for $119 million.
All time lows in popular taste including e-books
While old books soldiered on, in some cases with distinction, popular taste in new books, whatever their format, reached a new low. The trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey,” dubbed “housewife porn,” dominated all the best seller lists in both print and electronic formats. Readers apparently could not get enough of S&M lite.
Likewise, young fans and the hugely popular movie of the same name insured Hunger Games, a teen age dystopian fantasy, stayed hot. Other brands with staying power included Harry Potter titles, Oz books, and the many incarnations of James Bond. In fact the Bond franchise never looked stronger with a new movie in release and a plethora of Fleming related books, memorabilia and merchandise to stoke collectors’ fancy.
While e-books are not usually within AE’s purview, it’s important to note that the biggest success story on Kindle was Jennifer Probst’s The Marriage Bargain, a novel priced at $2.99 that was the #8 bestselling Kindle e-book of the first half of the year. The book was published in February by Entangled, a new publisher that gives its authors higher royalties (40% on cover price for digital titles).
When asked to comment on The Marriage Bargain's runaway success, Entangled publisher Liz Pelletier said, "We were confident this title would sell strong for the genre, but not this well. Sales have far exceeded our expectations.”
The author’s own web site was thrilled to report that follow up title: The Marriage Mistake reached #5 on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list. This was closely followed by her new holiday short story, The Holiday Hoax. The Marriage TrapandThe MarriageBargaintrailed shortly behind – making a total of four books in the top 100.
Deaths, Law Suits, Big Sales
Among those important in the world of books who died this year were Maurice Sendak, Gore Vidal, Nora Ephron, and Carlos Fuentes to name a few. The death of tech pioneer Steve Jobs, whose i-products changed the way book content was delivered, was also widely reported.
There was plenty of legal action in 2012 to keep the lawyers busy. Among the most notable was the end to a seven year legal battle between Google and publishers over copyrights and digitization.
Through it all antiquarians did what antiquarians do - they kept looking for the good stuff where ever it could be found. Two book sales that caught the fancy of both dealers and collectors were the final disposal of the inventory of Serendipity Books in Berkeley, CA., precipitated by the death of iconic dealer Peter Howard. Even more attention went to the disposal of books owned by Texas author-bookseller Larry McMurty, whose inventory took up a whole small town. The McMurty stock went under the hammer in August. Dealers from around the country drove in to attend and reported it all sold and was hauled away in a fast and haphazard manner.
AE ads hundreds of thousands of records
Back at the AE headquarters in San Francisco publisher Bruce McKinney and son Tom added hundreds of thousand of historical and contemporary auction and dealer records to the site’s existing database. These additions made AE not only the most comprehensive source for price, bibliographic and related info extant but also the fastest growing.
AE also moved slowly into the world of libraries, archives and special collections, offering free trials to library folk who may have heard of but not used the site before.
A classic example of why AE might prove a valuable resource to libraries came from Centralia College in Washington state where a 200-year-old book sitting on a shelf unused for years the was auctioned at Christie’s in New York in June going for $110,500.
“This is simply amazing,” Dr. Jim Walton, college president said. “A book that we were going to give away will now fund a program that will provide a great benefit to our students. All because it wouldn’t fit in the box.”
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 123. Celebrate 250 Years of Independence with Original Stars and Stripes (1790) Est. $1,400 - $1,700
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 20. Keulen's Spectacular Chart of the World Featuring California as an Island (1728) Est. $12,000 - $15,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 42. Schedel's Ancient World Map with Fantastic Humanoid Creatures (1493) Est. $14,000 - $17,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 591. Matching Set of 3 Stunning Globe Gores of Eastern Asia from Coronelli's 3.5 Foot Globe (1688) Est. $5,500 - $7,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 9. Speed's Popular World Map with Allegorical Representations of the Elements (1651) Est. $14,000 - $17,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 168. First Separate Map of Kansas & Nebraska Territories (1854) Est. $5,500 - $7,000
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 43. Only Macrobius Map with Britain Attached to Europe (1515) Est. $800 - $950
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 250. Rare Map of Boston and One of the Earliest Maps of the Revolutionary War (1775) Est. $2,000 - $2,300
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 79. Schenk's Uncommon Map Featuring Two Figurative Title Cartouches (1696) Est. $1,200 - $1,500
Old World Auctions (June 17): Lot 681. Hand-Colored Image of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (1502) Est. $800 - $950
Sotheby's Book Week 2 June - 9 July
Sotheby’s, June 25: Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations, on its 250th anniversary. $180,000 to $250,000.
Sotheby’s, June 17: Fontana, Lucio. Concetto Spaziale. 1967. Leporello en papier doré. Bel exemplaire signé. €4,000 to $€,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”. $150,000 to $200,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: Washington, George (as First President). Washington decries “an ostentatious imitation, or mimickry of Royalty” in his Presidency. $250,000 to $500,000.
Sotheby’s, June 17: Lope de Vega. Rare manuscrit autographe signé de la préface dédicatoire de "El Cardenal de Belen" (le cardinal de Bethléem), pièce composée en 1610. €40,000 to €60,000.
Leland Little, June 12: The First Illustrated Edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Leland Little, June 12: John Morton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Signed Pennsylvania Land Survey.
Leland Little, June 12: The Scarce Jansson Edition of a Remarkable Early View of London.
Leland Little, June 12: Signed Limited Edition of The Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Leland Little, June 12: Faden’s Important and Scarce Map of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution.
Leland Little, June 12: William J. Tate (NC, 1869-1953), Archive of the "Original host to the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk.”
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Galileo Galilei. Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico, e copernicano. Firenze, 1632
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Saverio Manetti. Storia naturale degli uccelli. Firenze, 1771-76
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Fortunato Depero. Depero futurista. Rovereto, 1927
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Nicolas Visscher. Atlas minor sive totius orbis terrarum contracta delineat ex conatibus. Amsterdam, circa 1649-95
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Andreas Vesalius. Anatomia. Addita nunc. Antiquorum Anatome. Venezia, 1604
Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Tristan Tzara and Salvador Dalì. Grains et Issues. Parigi, 1935
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: Houdini's biography, boldly signed. $3,000 to $5,000.
Doyle, June 25: A volume from Abraham Lincoln's library, signed just before heading to Washington for his inauguration. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very early Confederate recruiting manual belonging to the chief commissary in Lee's Army. $600 to $800.
Doyle, June 25: Rare hand-colored lithographs of the life of Napoleon. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: The "Holster Atlas" of the American Revolution. $5,000 to $8,000.
Doyle, June 25: Jewish ceremonies in fine hand-colored engravings. $7,000 to $10,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very rare work on Turkish military costume. $1,000 to $1,500.
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: The most important illustrated work on the Mexican-American War. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: The finest illustrated book on Afghanistan. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: Henry Justice Ford St. George rescues the Princess from the horrible Dragon. $2,000 to $3,000.
Doyle, June 25: A rare work of Prussian Army uniforms under Frederick William II, with exquisite hand-colored engravings. $800 to $1,200.
Doyle, June 25: Lenny Bruce typed letter signed to a Village bohemian during his obscenity trials, with a manuscript note and drawing. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: Schiff's scarce Shanghai Sketchbook. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: The first accurate published representation of the American flag. $2,000 to $4,000.
