For December, we have 13 new bookseller catalogues to review. Perhaps in keeping with the season, gift-giving for friends and family with varied tastes, we have a few more catalogues with a variety of offerings than usual. You can call them a variety or a miscellany, but what you can't easily do is categorize them. Falling into this group are the latest collections from Raptis Rare Books, Honey & Wax Booksellers, Whitmore Rare Books, and Respess Rare Books. Perhaps they lean somewhat to what we might expect, literature from Whitmore, well-known classics from Raptis, the artistic and eclectic from Honey & Wax, but there is too much outside of what we might expect to try to define this group.
As for the others, Lorne Bair Rare Books focuses on material related to radical causes. Less political, but often appealing to a similar audience, Brian Cassidy Bookseller offers countercultural material, along with some that's more plain cultural. Even less political, but artistic and beautiful, are the works offered by The Veatchs Arts of the Book. Shapero Rare Books crosses cultures with this one, entitled "Polyglossia," which refers to multiple languages.
Langdon Manor Books features American personal narratives. The William Reese Company focuses on the "Best of the West," the American West, that is. Not so of Hordern House, which has a catalogue simply titled "Australia." Peter Harrington covers them all with a catalogue of travel books. Finally, Aleph-Bet Books has items that no one can resist – a selection of children's books and ephemera.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today These are the Times that Try Men's Souls. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$152,900.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today The First Printed Work on Political Economy. Sold for US$127,000.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Signed Lincoln Photograph with Son Tad. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today First Expanded Edition of Common Sense. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Presentation Copy of Hemmingway's First Book. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today St. John's Gospel on Vellum, A Fragment in Greek, 5th Century. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Only A Handful of Surviving Copies. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Sold for US$58,880.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Pivotal Step in Einstein's Development of General Relativity. Sold for US$51,200.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Fine Jewelled Binding Signed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Sold for US$56,320.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Joyce's Annotated Typescript Draft for Finnegan's Wake. Sold for US$48,640.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today One of 30 Pre-Publication Copies, Inscribed by Hemingway to Spencer Tracy, Who Played "The Old Man". Sold for US$83,050.
Sotheby’s Year in Review
Sotheby’s Year in Review: A Rare Hebrew Bible with Micrographic Masorah. Sold: 1,514,000 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: "The Freedman's Primer.” Sold: 241,300 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Smith, William. "The Map that Changed the World." Sold: 139,700 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Psalter, C13th. Illuminated Psalter. Sold: 330,200 GBP
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Lincoln, Abraham. The abolition of slavery. Sold: 13,697,500 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Vergilius. Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1501. Sold: 1,041,400 USD
