Sotheby’s, 28 Oct: Scève, Maurice. Microcosme. Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1562. Maroquin vert de Lortic fils. Rarissime édition originale.
Sotheby’s, 28 Oct: Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, 1855. Édition originale, imprimée par Whitman lui-même et reliée sur ses instructions. Avec un exemplaire de "Calamus", Boston, 1897
Sotheby’s Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé : le dernier chapiter 28 October 2024
Sotheby’s, 28 Oct: García Lorca, Federico. Poema del cante jondo. Madrid, 1931. Édition originale. Exemplaire offert par Lorca au journaliste basque Pedro Mourlane Michelena
Sotheby’s, 28 Oct: Ronsard, Pierre de. Les Amours. 1553. [Suivi de:] Continuation des amours. 1557. In-8. Vélin. Troisième édition des Amours et deuxième édition de la Continuation
Sotheby’s, 28 Oct: Vivaldi, Antonio. L’Estro Armonico... Amsterdam [1712]. Édition originale. Rares partitions de 12 concertos, gravées sur cuivre
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 31: William Shakespeare, Second Folio, 1632. $120,000 to $180,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 175: Agostino Nifo’s De Regnandi Peritia ad Carolum VI, 1523. $25,000 to $35,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 263: Johannes Hevelius, Selenographia: Sive, 1647. $15,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 32: William Shakespeare, Poems, 1640. $15,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 230: Ernest Hemingway, in our time, Limited First Edition; One of 170 Copies Printed, Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1924. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 43: Amadis de Gaule Story Cycle, Various Authors, El Octavo Libro and El Noveno Libro, 1526 and 1542. $8,000 to $12,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 25: John Milton, Poems of Mr. John Milton, 1645. $7,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 259: William Griffith Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More than One Hundred Men Have Recovered, 1939. $15,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 242: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960. $10,000 to $15,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 69: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote in Spanish, Ibarra's Academy Edition, 1780. $6,000 to $8,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lot 9: Elizabeth I, Queen of England, The Historie of Guicciardin, 1599. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Oct. 24: Lor 103: Francisco Lopez de Ubeda, Libro de Entrentenimiento de la Picara Justina, 1605. $6,000 to $8,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: A Superb Extra-illustrated Copy of Nicolay and Hay’s Work About Lincoln. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The First Volume of De Bry's Great Voyages, Thomas Hariot's Description of Virginia. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: An autographed cabinet card of Custer as lieutenant colonel. From his last sitting. $800 – 1,200.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The Congressional Committee, Lincoln's Funeral Springfield Illinois, 3 May 1865. $4,000 – 6,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: A remarkable ninth plate daguerreotype of an interracial couple. $30,000 – 50,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: What may be the earliest known images of an identified plantation and enslaved African Americans posed with their owner. $20,000 – 30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: Through Tickets to All Principal Points West Via Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad For Sale at This Office. $500 – 700.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: 15th New York Infantry / Regiment of Engineers GAR regimental colors. Ca 1880. $1,500 – 2,500.
Exploring Context: Benjamin Franklin in Gentleman's Magazine
- by Renee Roberts
Masthead of The Gentleman's Magazine, source for experiments replicating Franklin's observations on electricity.
by Renee Magriel Roberts
As rare booksellers, it is normal for us to focus attention on publications in book form. Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America, To which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. The Whole corrected, methodized, improved, and now first collected into one Volume (London: for David Henry, 1769), 4th edition, is a lovely, desirable collectible -- the first book in which Franklin's research activities on electricity, including his famous kite and key experiment of 1752, were collected. I love rare books, but I was trained as a scholar first, and so get a bit frustrated, even dissatisfied, when I see interesting books bought and sold as standalone objects that have monetary value, as if they somehow exist devoid of any context.
Experiments, in fact, was not just a later, more "complete" edition. Like many modern researchers and authors, Franklin, who was engaged in electricity-related experiments since 1746, did not first publish his findings in book form -- but initially published and distributed letters and papers, some of which appeared in the same year of his field work.
When we began to collect Frankliniana (with a very modest budget), we thought it would be interesting to look at materials related to Franklin's work -- in other words, not only the works themselves, but the response of other thinkers to his works. For us, context adds tremendous value to books, because it helps us to not only focus on the date on the title page, but the cultural context in which the work was created.
With that in mind, we purchased what is now a pretty scarce volume of Gentleman's Magazine, Volume XXII for 1752 (London: Cave). This illustrated collection of letters and essays has a real freshness and immediacy, and was printed in the same year of Franklin's famous kite experiment.
In May, 1752 GM publishes an excerpt by Franklin called "A new Hypothesis for explaining the Phenomena of Thunder, Lightning, and Rain" excerpted from an earlier edition of Experiment and Observations on Electricity. Following the excerpt, there is a letter, published May 26, 1752 by "N.S.", referring to two lightning rod experiments in Paris, both of which had been reported to the Royal Academy of Sciences. These experiments were designed to confirm Franklin's hypothesis that properly grounded lightning rods would preserve tall structures from damage.