-
<b><center>Swann Auction Galleries<br>View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> Gideon Welles, <i>Extensive archive of personal and family papers of Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy,</i> 1791-1914. Sold September 29 — $281,000.<b>Swann:</b> Charles Addams, <i>Rock Climbers,</i> cartoon for <i>The New Yorker,</i> watercolor, ink and gouache, 1954. Sold December 15 — $37,500.<b>Swann:</b> Charlotte Brontë, <i>Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell,</i> three volumes, first edition, 1847. Sold June 16, 2022 — $23,750.<b>Swann:</b> Geoffrey Chaucer, <i>The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed,</i> London, 1542. Sold October 13 — $106,250.<b><center>Swann Auction Galleries<br>View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> Dorothea Lange, <i>Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age 32),</i> silver print, 1936. Sold October 20 — $305,000.<b>Swann:</b> George Washington, Autograph Document Signed, with two manuscript plat maps in holograph, 1751. Sold October 27 — $37,500.<b>Swann:</b> Winfred Rembert, <i>Winfred Rembert and Class of 1959,</i> dye on carved & tooled leather, 1999. Sold October 6 — $233,000.<b>Swann:</b> M.C. Escher, <i>Relativity,</i> lithograph, 1953. Sold November 3 — $81,250.
-
<b><center>Sotheby’s<br>Original Film Posters<br>27 January - 10 February 2023</b><b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Vertigo (1958), poster, US. The ultimate poster on this classic Hitchcock title, one of three known examples. £40,000 to £60,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Lawrence of Arabia (1962), roadshow poster, US. £8,000 to £12,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Star Wars (1977), style C poster, printer's proof, US. £7,000 to £10,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> The Navigator/ La Croisiere du Navigator (1924), re-release poster (1931), French. £5,000 to £8,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Bullitt (1968), special test poster, US. £3,000 to £5,000.
-
<center><b>Potter & Potter Auctions<br>Fine Books & Manuscripts,<br>including Americana<br>February 16, 2023</b><b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [KELMSCOTT PRESS]. CHAUCER, Geoffrey. <i>The Works…now newly imprinted.</i> Edited by F.S. Ellis. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896. $100,000 to $125,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [EINSTEIN, Albert (1879–1955)]. –– ORLIK, Emil (1870–1932), artist. Lithograph signed (“Albert Einstein”). N.p., 1928. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> TOLKIEN, John Ronald Reuel. <i>[The Lord of the Rings trilogy:] The Fellowship of the Ring.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Two Towers.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Return of the King.</i> 1955. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") and Charles Dudley WARNER. <i>The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.</i> Hartford and Chicago, 1873. $6,000 to $8,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> LOVECRAFT, Howard Phillips. <i>Beyond the Wall of Sleep.</i> Collected by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1943. $2,000 to $3,000.
-
<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Black Sun Press] Proust, Marcel, 47 Unpublished Letters from Marcel Proust to Walter Berry, Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1930. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963), <i>Spring and All,</i> first edition, Paris: Contact Publishing Co., 1923. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Washington, George (1732-1799), Autograph Letter Signed. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), Autograph Letter Signed. $30,000 to $50,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862), Autograph Manuscript. $3,000 to $5,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Paris Commnue], Photograph album. $1,500 to $2,500.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Fleming, Ian (1908-1964), <i>Casino Royale,</i> first edition, London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. $3,000 to $4,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Audubon, John James and the Rev. John Bachman, <i>The Quadrupeds of North America,</i> New York: V.G. Audubon, 1849, 1851, 1854. $4,000 to $6,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Lewis, C.S. (1898-1963), <i>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,</i> first edition, London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd, 1952. $600 to $800.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Bhagavad Gita] Wilkins, Charles, trans., <i>The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon…,</i> first edition, London: Printed for C. Nourse, 1785. $700 to $1,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <i>Faust: Eine Tragodie von Goethe,</i> Hammersmith: Printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson & Emery Walker at the Doves Press, 1906-1910. $800 to $1,200.
Rare Book Monthly
First Impressions of a California Newspaper: 1850
By Bruce McKinney
If you want to understand a place at a particular time start with an examination of its newspapers. I did just this recently reading the first issue of the Illustrated California News. Vol. 1, No. 1 published on September 1, 1850. It was a short-lived San Francisco newspaper that saw its mission as reporting northern Californian events and disseminating the news around the world for it was mostly an “export paper,” one intended to carry the news of northern California to the outside world. It provides a fascinating picture and one that is available to all AEM readers as the full text and all images of this issue are published here as an attachment. At 9,773 words it takes about an hour to read cover to cover. Only six issues were published: the last on December 1, 1850. It was the 17th newspaper to commence publication in what is now the State of California. The first published was The Californian, at Monterey, on August 15th, 1846. The first San Francisco newspaper, The California Star, commenced publishing on January 9, 1847.
Gold was discovered north of San Francisco at Sutter’s Mill in January 1848. When in 1849 the world began to descend the term ‘49ers’ was born. The following year The Illustrated California News was established in San Francisco to carry the news of local events to the world. The Illustrated California News, the 10th newspaper in four years to be established in San Francisco would be short lived, as would be most of the others. As a newspaper the emphasis was on “immediate,” rather than lasting. Nevertheless the editors’ selection of stories and their slant leave to posterity an indelible impression of events and values of that time.
The proprietors chose a good time to start. There was plenty of news. The lead story is the recounting of a memorial parade (procession) and funeral oration staged to honor President Zachary Taylor who died in Washington, D.C. on July 9th. No where in this edition is the President’s first name, dates of birth and death mentioned. “President” is slipped into the body of the text, the editors simply forgetting to mention some of the essential facts. He is, in this newspaper’s headline, simply General Taylor on the apparent assumptions that everyone knew who he was and that all and sundry would agree that his highest achievement was the rank of General rather than his other title, President. Apparently, what John Nance Garner would say about the Vice Presidency in the 1930s was true of the Presidency eighty years earlier.
In the mourning parade there is a section for old timers. To quality you had to have arrived in California at least three years earlier, a reminder that most of the population was very new. Every male seems to have been invited to participate as even the sailors on the ships in port are accorded a place. An examination of the order of march suggests a certain pecking order, the lodges and orders coming first and the various and sundry foreign residents last. There isn’t however a single mention of a woman. Feminism, strongly established in San Francisco today, was not yet in evidence.