Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2004 Issue

Got a Revolution, Got to Revolution

Doris Moskowitz, near the pandemonium at  checkout and under her Dad's watchful eye.

Doris Moskowitz, near the pandemonium at checkout and under her Dad's watchful eye.

By Bruce McKinney

While the Jefferson Airplane were singing the lyrics of Volunteers in the late 1960's just across the bay, Moe and Barbara Moskowitz, foot soldiers in the revolution, were building a book store in Berkeley that would in time become a west coast institution. It is known simply as Moe's. There are 360 degrees of book collecting and 360 degrees of book selling. But unlike geometry where every degree is equal, in the world of books each degree fluctuates and vibrates with the personalities of the players, the drumbeat of the times and the energy and intelligence of the buyers. Welcome to the world of Moe's Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, the Fat Tuesday of west coast booksellers where the energy survives even as the eras change.

If you are an antiquarian you have to get past the building. It's new in a 1970s between-styles way. George Washington definitely didn't sleep here. Moe Moskowitz came to the Bay Area from New York in the mid-1950s. He brought his opinions and an eclectic background as activist, anarchist, painter, violinist and picture framer with him. Within a few years he found a wife and partner: Barbara and in 1959 opened a used paperback shop. In time and after several moves the Moe's you find today at 2476 Telegraph came into being. From the beginning change has been a constant. What were first paperbacks became in time new books, used books and antiquarian material. The business, which for a while spilled over into neighboring spaces, is back at a single address albeit four stories.

This is a business that buys used books and has always bought a lot of them. Some businesses expand because the space runs out. Moe's is one of them. For a while there was Moe's Annex where the python who swallowed the donkey kept extra lunch. Today the inventory once again fits within the four walls at 2476 yet even now there are high piles of just arrived material stacked new every day on counters near the main entrance. Think of it as an Ellis Island of orphaned and used books waiting to be valued, marked and sent to the appropriate floor, section, and shelf where the daily throngs wait to paw, measure and calculate the fresh prizes and choose an armful to take home. This is a business with a mission.

Floors one, two and three are new and used books with an emphasis on newer and less expensive art books. The fourth floor is a kingdom unto itself: rare and collectable material. As in sky scrapers the valuable real estate is on the top floor.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Dec. 18: A Very Fine Composite Atlas Magnificently Illuminated and Heightened with Gold in a Fine Contemporary Hand Throughout. $300,000 - $500,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Saint-Exupéry's Revised Ending for Wind, Sand and Stars. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Edith Wharton's Gold Medal from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1924. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Salinger on the Glass Family and on Detachment. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Fanny Burney's Groundbreaking First Novel. Evelina, Or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Kafka's Earliest Extant Piece of Writing. Autograph Note Signed ("Franz Kafka"). $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Wagner Signed "Ride of the Valkries." $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Dickens on the Death of Little Nell. $5,000 - $8,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Sylvia Plath's Copy of Joy of Cooking. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Walt Whitman and Friends: Whitman to James Russell Lowell. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 18: Walt Whitman and Friends: The Genesis of his Lincoln Lectures. $6,000 - $9,000
  • Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: A Rare Complete Run of the Cuala Press Broadsides. €5,500 to €7,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Rare First Edition of a Classic Work. [Stafford (Thos.)] Pacata Hibernia, Ireland Appeased and Reduced…, 1633. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Signed by author, limited edition. €1,250 to €1,750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Fishing: Literal Translation into English of the Earliest Known Book on Fowling and Fishing, Written originally in Flemish and Printed at Antwerp in 1492. London (Chiswick Press) 1872. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Fishing: Blacker's - Art of Fly Making, etc., Comprising Angling & Dying of Colours..., Rewritten & Revised. Lond. 1855. €250 to €350.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Joyce (James). Finnegans Wake,, London (Faber & Faber Ltd.) 1939, Lim. Edn. No. 269 (425) copies, Signed by the Author (in green pen). €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Synge (J.M.) & Yeats (Jack B.) illus. The Aran Islands,, D. (Maunsel & Co. Ltd.) 1907, Signed Limited Edn. €4,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Meyer (Dr. A.B.) Unser Auer -, Rackel-Und Birkwild und Seine Abarten, Wien (Verlag Von Adolph W. Kunast) 1887. €2,500 to €3,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Carve (Thomas). Itinerarium R.D. Thomas Carve Tripperariensis, Sacellani Maioris in Fortisima iuxta…,, Moguntia (Mainz) impriemebat Nicolaus Heyll, 1639. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Grose (Francis). The Antiquities of Ireland, 2 vols. folio London (for S. Hooper) 1791. First Edition. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Heaney (Seamus) & Le Brocquy (Louis) artist. Ugolino, D. (Dolmen Press) 1979, Signed Limited Edition No. 87 (125) Copies. €3,500 to €4,500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 11-12: Heaney (Seamus). Eleven Poems, Belfast (Festival publications - Queens University) [1965], First Edn., (First Issue) Signed. €2,500 to €3,500.
  • Bonhams, Dec. 17: Kelmscott Chaucer: The Finest Book Since the Gutenberg Bible. $60,000 - $90,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Inscribed by William Morris to Edward Burne-Jones. Poems Chosen out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Morris's Original Manuscript Title-Page Design for Rosetti. Ballads and Narrative Poems. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Printed on Vellum: The Founding of the Kelmscott Press. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Inscribed by William Morris to Edward Burne-Jones. Voragine, Jacobus De. The Golden Legend. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Inscribed by William Morris to Edward Burne-Jones. Lull, Ramon. The Order of Chivalry. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Inscribed by William Morris to Swinburne. Morris, William, translator. Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Printed on Vellum: One of Only 15 Copies. Morris, William, translator. Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Inscribed by William Morris to Rudyard Kipling. The Book of Wisdom and Lies. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: William Morris Association Copy in Fine Binding. Morris, William. Child Christopher and Goldilind at the Fair. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Morris, William. 1834-1896. The Earthly Paradise. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Dec. 17: Nuremberg Chronicle. Schedel, Hartmann. 1440-1514. $30,000 - $50,000
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    Printed Books, Maps & Ephemera
    Printing Woodblocks by Thomas & John Bewick
    12 December 2024
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: Gell (William). The Topography of Troy, and its Vicinity, 1804. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: Low (David). The Breeds of the Domestic Animals of the British Islands, 1842. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: North America. Moll (Herman)..., This Map of North America..., circa 1725. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    Printed Books, Maps & Ephemera
    Printing Woodblocks by Thomas & John Bewick
    12 December 2024
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: Bible [English]. [The Holie Bible conteynyng the Olde Testament and the Newe, 1568]. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: Chaucer (Geoffrey). The Workes of Our Ancient and Learned English Poet, newly Printed, 1602. £1,500 to £2,000. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 12: Cuffee (Paul). Memoir of Captain Paul Cuffee, A Man of Color, Liverpool, 1811. £300 to £500.
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books, Playing Cards, Toys & Games
    13 December 2024
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Milne (A. A.) The House at Pooh Corner, signed limited edition, 1928. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Huxley (Aldous). Brave New World, limited signed edition, 1932. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Orwell (George). Animal Farm, 1st edition, 1945. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    Modern First Editions & Illustrated Books, Playing Cards, Toys & Games
    13 December 2024
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Rowling (J. K.). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1st edition, 1st impression, 1997. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Tolkien (J. R. R.) The Lord of the Rings, 3 volumes, 1st edition, 1954-55. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Dominic Winter, Dec. 13: Wells (H. G.) The War of the Worlds, 1st edition, 1st issue, 1898. £1,000 to £1,500.
  • Sotheby's
    Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
    Discover Upcoming Auctions
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 9: Coronelli, Vincenzo Maria. "Epitome Cosmografica." With the 6 circular celestial and terrestrial charts. 7,000 – 10,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 9: Hurley, Frank. Collection of 69 photographs taken during Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Expedition. 80,000 – 120,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 10: Sendak, Maurice. Original artwork for the inaugural "New York is Book Country" poster, 1979. 300,000 – 600,00 USD
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 10: [Brontë, Emily, and Ann Brontë] — Ellis Bell and Acton Bell. An outstanding survival of the sisters' debut novels Estimate. 90,000 - 130,000 USD

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