• <center><b>Sotheby's<br>English Literature and History<br>Available for Immediate Purchase</b>
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> William Shakespeare. <i>A Midsummer-Night's Dream,</i> 1908. 7,500 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. <i>Brontës' Novels,</i> 1922. 2,400 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> Lewis Carroll. <i>Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,</i> 1872. 25,000 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> Charles Dickens. Collection of Fiction including <i>Oliver Twist</i> and <i>Sketches by Boz,</i> 1838-1865. 6,250 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> Mary Shelley. <i>Frankenstein,</i> 1839. 4,250 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> James Joyce. <i>Ulysses,</i> 1925. 2,500 USD
    <b>Sotheby’s, Available Now:</b> Jane Austen. <i>The Complete Works of Jane Austen,</i> 1901. 5,250 USD
  • <center><b>Jeschke Jadi Auctions Berlin<br>Rare Books, Prints, Historical Photography<br>29 September 2023</b>
    <b>Jeschke Jádi, Sep. 29:</b> Jan Theodor de Bry. <i>Anthologia magna sive Florilegium novum.</i> 1626. 9,000 €
    <b>Jeschke Jádi, Sep. 29:</b> John Locke. <i>Epistola de tolerantia ad Clarissimum Virum T.A.R.P.T.O.L.A.</i> 1689. 9000 €
    <b>Jeschke Jádi, Sep. 29:</b> F. T. Marinetti, Boccioni, Pratella, Carrà, a.o. <i>Collection of 35 Futurist manifestos.</i> 1909-1933. 7000 €
    <b>Jeschke Jádi, Sep. 29:</b> Johann Elert Bode, Rare engraved celestial globe. (1804). 6000 €
    <b>Jeschke Jádi, Sep. 29:</b> Sebastian Brant (ed.). <i>Tertia pars huius operis in se continens glosam ordinariam cum expositione lyre litterali et morali.</i> 1498. 5000 €
  • <center><b>Christie’s<br>Charlie Watts: Literature and Jazz<br>London and online auction<br>15–29 September</b>
    <b>Christie’s, Explore now:</b><br>F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940). <i>The Great Gatsby.</i> New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. £100,000–150,000
    <b>Christie’s, Explore now:</b><br>Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). </i>The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes.</b> London: George Newnes, 1902. £70,000–100,000
    <b>Christie’s, Explore now:</b><br>Agatha Christie (1890–1976). <i>The Thirteen Problems.</i> London: for the Crime Club Ltd. by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1932. £40,000–60,000
    <b>Christie’s, Explore now:</b><br>Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961). <i>The Maltese Falcon.</i> New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. £30,000–50,000
  • <b><center>CONSIGN NOW</b>
    <b>Ketterer Rare Books, Preview:</b></br> H. Scherer, <i>Atlas novus exhibens orbem terraqueum,</i> 1702-10.<br>Est: € 15,000
    <b>Ketterer Rare Books, Preview:</b></br> L. de Varthema, <i>Die Ritterlich und lobwirdig rayß,</i> 1515.<br>Est: € 60,000
    <b>Ketterer Rare Books, Preview:</b></br> G. Heym, <i>Umbra vitae,</i> 1924.<br>Est: € 8,000
    <b>Ketterer Rare Books, Preview:</b></br>F. de Wit, <i>Orbis maritimus ofte Zee Atlas,</i> around 1680.<br>Est: € 15,000

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - February - 2019 Issue

Richard Ramer: A life of Books

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Recently Richard Ramer, the New York and Lisbon Rare Book Antiquarian specializing in Portuguese and Spanish material, issued a 50th Anniversary catalogue to celebrate a half century in the field.  He has long dealt in Spanish and Portuguese books, as well as Brazilian and Spanish American imprints, among them early ones on a wide variety of subjects.

 

It’s his catalogue No. 11 and that number suggests a very interesting story.

 

In 1965 he moved to Bloomington to study Latin American history at the Indiana University.  A major influence would be Charles Boxer, a great English book collector and historian. He had read his works and knew that, in 1960 he sold his library to the Lilly Library at Indiana University for $100,000 and under terms of the sale, was to spend 3 or so months per year in Bloomington, and give a graduate seminar. “He was one of the reasons I decided to study for my M.A. there.  Shortly after arriving in Bloomington, I showed him a paper I had written about Robert Southey’s interests in Spanish and Portuguese literature, as well as Portuguese and Brazilian history. He liked the paper, but commented that I should have a look at Borba de Moraes’ bibliography of rare Brasiliana. This would open my eyes to the importance of rare books for serious scholarly investigation.  He would later invite me to join a TGIF group that met regularly at a bar called Nick’s, become friends and over the years stayed in touch.”

 

Upon graduation in 1967 Richard returned to New York with a 2 year fellowship from the State of New York and used the opportunity to investigate the book trade.  In that period it was as much a lark as a strategy as he still expected to become an academic.  But these were Vietnam War years and the times were unsettled.  Nothing was quite what it had been and adventure was in the air.  As luck would have it, at Park Bernet in 1968 he bought a book for $20 and a year later sold it for $250.  At the time an academic entering the teaching field could expect to make $6,000 or $7,000  a year so that first volume earned him about 2 weeks of academic pay.  It was a promising start.

 

Now open to the idea of old and rare books as an investment if not yet a career, he looked for other opportunities to buy and sell based on his understanding of history and began to see a strategy that would permit him a career in the field.  His academic understanding of history would become both his basis for purchases and later his explanations of relevance and importance. It was a good start that would serve as a counterweight to his initial inexperience with the book as an object as well as his dawning awareness of the norms of the book trade.

 

“I never had anyone in my family in the book trade, never worked for a bookseller or in a library, and knew next to nothing about the book as an object. It would take 4 or 5 years to begin to have even a clue about what I was doing, but it was a fortunate time to begin, with much material on the market. In those days Swann Galleries had a book sale almost every week, always with some very interesting items. Attending those sales, even if only able to buy a few things, was a great learning experience.

 

That would lead a decade later, “when I had become a full-fledged book dealer and was exhibiting at London book fairs to invite Charles, now safely back in England, to attend, and he in turn to invite me to dine at the Atheneum Club, or visit his country house.  I was coming of age and it was an exceptional time to be a dealer because institutions had both money and desire and scholarly knowledge was precious.  I felt confirmed.”

 

Another decade later, when Charles participated in a conference organized by Prof. Kenneth Maxwell at Columbia University in New York, my wife and I hosted a dinner for him, his wife Emily Hahn, their daughter Carola, Prof. Maxwell, the distinguished art historian Michael Teague, and several others. The table talk was recorded, and served well the eminent historian Dauril Alden when he later wrote the definitive biography of Boxer.

 

 

“In those years several members of the trade were most kind in providing tips and guidance: Steve Weissman, Felix Oyens, Jim Cummins, Bart Auerbach, Peter Kraus, Arthur Freeman and others allowed me to sit with them for drinks from time to time after auctions or during lulls at book fairs. This was an opportunity to absorb much about the norms of the trade and books in general. Douglas Parsonage of Lathrop C. Harper was also very kind. Along with Steve Weissman, he would later sponsor me for ABAA membership. Slightly later influences in the trade were Nicholas Poole-Wilson and others at Quaritch, including Derek McDonnell and Richard Linenthal. I also learned a great deal from Librarians; more from Roger Stoddard at Houghton Library than any other, but also from John Alden at Boston Public, Jack Parker at James Ford Bell, Ken Carpenter at the Kress, Steve Ferguson, Don Farren and Sam Hough at JCB, and Harold Whitehead at the British Museum (now British Library). Bill Runge at University of Virginia was also a positive influence; his assistant, Cindy Sinnot, became my first employee. The kindness of librarians was a great help in my early years, and has continued to be to this very day. Relationships with collectors have also been a wonderful influence.”

 

 

He would never become a frequent catalogue issuer.  He preferred making his case to institutions and collectors by careful explanation, often sending detailed accounts.  It was a slow process that married his academic knowledge in history, as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American and Brazilian literature, with his entrepreneurial interest, often taking several months for the offer and answer process to work themselves out, as often they did.

 

 

With the emergence of the internet he would have to re-invent himself and embrace the challenge that, over the past 20 years, has seen him shift from the issuance of printed catalogues to the issuance of eCatalogues.  That’s why, after 50 years, he’s only up to No. 11.  As he recently explained, “it’s been about 15 years since I last issued a printed catalogue but the occasion of a 50th anniversary seemed to suggest it.”

 

This is not to suggest he was ever inactive.  Over the years he has issued 222 “Special Lists”, numbered 101 to 322. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s they were less frequent, and done in small numbers, photocopied and mailed to a few customers. Later they became regularly issued elists, from 20 to 40 per year, sent to roughly 1,000 potential clients.  In addition to his primary topics he also regularly offers material in medicine, science, natural history, botany, Inquisition, Judaica, military, fencing, horsemanship, and agriculture, as well as the Portuguese experience in Africa, India, Timor, Macau, and Japan, and Spanish encounters in the Philippines and elsewhere.

 

“The world has changed.”  Within recent memory the very relationship between the seller and buyer has been transformed by the internet that has made it possible to understand importance and rarity with a few keystrokes. And even so, as a transitional figure with one foot in the old and the other in the new, he maintains a reference Library of over 4,000 volumes in New York, with another 600 or so, mostly duplicates, in his Lisbon flat. But of late, his research has often been initiated on the internet. “Today a dealer has to offer exceptional material,”  an outcome that favors the highly knowledgeable.  For him it’s the natural outcome of 50 years of experience.

 

In considering his half century he is unfailingly polite, invariably and inevitably turning questions about what he’s done into statements of appreciation to those who have helped him do it.

 

“Over the years I have had the good fortune to have had some excellent people work for me. Dianne Durante, a Ph.D. in Classics who can read medieval manuscripts and is fluent in Latin, Ancient and Modern Greek, and can read another half dozen or so Western languages worked for me from 1985 to 2000 with about a year off for maternity, returned to the fold in 2009 and has continued to work for me since. Dave Whitesell worked for me about 4 years in the mid-1990s before going on the Houghton Library, American Antiquarian Society, and is currently Curator of Rare Books at University of Virginia Library. Dan Slive, currently Head of Special Collections at Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, worked for me for a few weeks between a stint at the Reese Company and his current job. Anne Garner, presently Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Library at The New York Academy of Medicine, worked for me part time while studying for her M.L.S. degree. Sara Eckerson has worked for me the past 10 years or so in Lisbon, 2 days per week while obtaining an M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Lisbon; before that she worked for me part time in New York while completing her undergraduate studies at NYU. Sarah Cartwright worked for me in the early 2000s while earning a Ph.D. in art history from NYU; she went on to work as a curator at the Lehman collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is now living in Florida. My grandson, Diogo Sampaio has been helping me in Lisbon for the past ten years while obtaining a law degree from the Universidade Nova; he is now completing a Master’s degree in law.”

 

 

So, it turns out, both for the market and the material Richard prizes, his wealth of experience is a very good fit.  The scholar becomes the dealer and traverses an ever changing landscape over 5 decades.  It was one thing at the start and today a field hardly recognizable to those who have made the journey.   But at its heart it is still the discovery, pursuit and subsequent sale of important material.  And, it still works for him who continues to prepare himself for the new world of old material, and contrary to the nay-sayers, remains optimistic about the future of the book trade.

 

Summing up his experience, what comes to mind is the oft but rarely better used phrase:  no man is an island – an appropriate metaphor for the life of great books and even better friends he has lived.

 

nemo est insula

Rare Book Monthly

  • <b><center>Dominic Winter Auctioneers<br>September 27<br>The Library of the Late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey: Part One</b>
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Bible, Dominican Use, in Latin. Illuminated manuscript on vellum, [France: probably Paris, c. 1240]. £10,000-15,000
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Book of Hours, <i>in French with Latin cues.</i> Illuminated manuscript on vellum [France, Normandy, early(?) 15th century]. £10,000-15,000.
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Book of Hours, <i>Use of Rouen, in Latin and French.</i> Illuminated manuscript on vellum, [France: Rouen, c. 1480]. £30,000-40,000
    <b><center>Dominic Winter Auctioneers<br>September 27<br>The Library of the Late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey: Part One</b>
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Mary I (1516-1558). <i>Queen of England, 1553-1558.</i> Letter signed, ‘Marye the Quene’, Greenwich, 7 January 1558. £15,000-20,000
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Jonson (Ben). Works, 1st collected edition, 3 volumes, 1640. £7,000-10,000
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Essex. A sammelband of 27 English Civil War pamphlets mostly relating to the siege of Colchester, Essex, 1648. £5,000-8,000
    <b><center>Dominic Winter Auctioneers<br>September 27<br>The Library of the Late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey: Part One</b>
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Latham (Simon). Latham’s Faulconry, or the Faulcons Lure and Cure, 2 parts in one, 1658/. £2,000-3,000
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Exquemelin (Alexandre Olivier). The History of the Bucaniers of America, 2 volumes in 1, 2nd edition, 1695. £1,000-1,500
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Campbell (Patrick). Travels in the interior inhabited parts of North America..., 1st ed., 1793. £5,000-8,000
    <b><center>Dominic Winter Auctioneers<br>September 27<br>The Library of the Late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey: Part One</b>
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Burton (Richard F.). Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, 3 volumes, 1st edition, 1855-56. £5,000-8,000
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Cosway-style binding. Napoleon and the Fair Sex, 1894. One of 9 similar lots. £1,000-1,500
    <b>Dominic Winter, Sep. 27:</b> Shepard (Ernest Howard, 1879-1976). Pooh and Piglet, original pen and ink drawing, 1958. £20,000-30,000
  • <center><b>Gonnelli: Auction 46 Books<br>Autographs & Manuscripts<br>Oct 3rd-5th 2023</b>
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Tilson - Zanotto, Il vero tema. 2011. Starting price 150 €
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Munari, Storia di un filo. Starting price 400 €
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Debord, Contre le cinéma. 1964. Starting price 150 €
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Futurism books and ephemera
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Travel books
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Medicine books
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Levaillant, Histoire naturelle des perroquets. 1801-1805. Starting price 52.000 €
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Carrera, Il gioco de gli scacchi. 1617. Starting price 3200 €
    <b>Gonnelli:</b> Vergilius, Opera. 1515. Starting price 800 €
  • <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins<br>26th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Alken (Henry), Thomas Egerton et al. <i>The Melange of Humour,</i> first collected edition, Printed by W. Lewis, [c.1835]. £2,000 to £3,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> [Cheny (John) and Thomas Butler, publishers]. <i>[Horses & Their Pedigrees],</i> Cheny & Butler, 1740-1746 or 1751-1753. £4,000 to £6,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Dikenman (R.) Voyage en Suisse, Zurich, [c.1830]. £2,000 to £3,000.
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins<br>26th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Eckert (H.A.) Monten (Dietrich) and F. Schlever. <i>Das K.K. Russische Militair aus dem grossen Werke Saemmtliche Truppen von Europa,</i> first edition, Wuerzburg, 1840 [but c.1842]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Havell, Junior (Robert). <I>Costa Scena, or a Cruise along the Southern Coast of Kent,</I> hand-coloured aquatint panorama with original boxwood drum, 1823. £3,000 to £4,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Heideloff (Victor). <i>Ansichten des Herzoglich Württembergischen Landsitzes Hohenheim,</i> first edition in original 6 parts, Nuremberg, 1795-1800. £4,000 to £6,000.
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins<br>26th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Jones (Owen) and Jules Goury. <i>Views on the Nile: from Cairo to the Second Cataract,</i> first edition, Graves and Warmsley, 1843. £3,000 to £4,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Meyer (Johann Heinrich). <i>Der Rigiberg in Zeichnungen nach der Natur,</i> Zurich, Fuessli, 1807. £3,000 to £4,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Nichol (Andrew). <i>Five Views of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway,</i> first edition, Dublin, William Frederick Wakeman, 1834. £5,000 to £7,000.
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins<br>26th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Schetky (J. C.) A series of four sketches, illustrative of various situations of His Majesty's Ship Pique, Portsea, Trives & Maynard, 1835. £4,000 to £6,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Stackelberg (Otto Magnus von). <i>Costumes et Usages des Peuples de la Grece Moderne,</i> first edition, Rome, 1825. £20,000 to £30,000.
    <b>Forum, Sep. 26:</b> Stucchi (Stanislao). <i>Raccolta di Scene Teatrali eseguite o disegnate dai più celebri Pittori Scenici in Milano,</i> 3 vol., Milan, 1817. £6,000 to £8,000.
  • <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Asia.- Mandeville (Sir John). <i>Tractato bellissimo delle piu maravigliose cose & piu motabile che sitrovino nelle parte delmondo,</i> Florence, [Lorenzo Morgiani], [?1505] or possibly, 1496-99. £40,000 to £60,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Arabic ms.- Ghazaliyaat Kan'at al-Arabi [Divan of Poetry written in Arabic], illuminated manuscript in Arabic, Safavid Persia (probably Isfahan), [second quarter of 16th century]. £12,000 to £16,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Foxe (John). <i>Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the Church…,</i> first edition, dwellyng ouer Aldersgate, [20th March, 1563]. £15,000 to £20,000.
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Barrie (J.M.) <i>Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up,</i> first play edition, signed presentation inscription from the author "To my dear Jane Pan", 1928. £3,000 to £4,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Gillray (James). John Bull taking a Luncheon: -or- British Cooks, cramming Old Grumble-Gizzard, with Bonne-Chére, etching with hand-colouring, 1798. £1,500 to £2,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Middle East.- Roberts (David). <i>The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia,</i> 6 vol. bound as 4, first edition, 1842-49. £12,000 to £18,000.
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Greenwood (C. & J.) <i>Map of London made from an Actual Survey in the Years 1824, 1825 & 1826...,</i> first edition, engraved map, 1827. £15,000 to £20,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Newton (Sir Isaac). <i>Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light…,</i> first edition, 1704. £15,000 to £20,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Smith (Percy John Delf). Collection of 19 original preliminary drawings for "Twelve Drypoints of the War 1914-1918", circa 1914-1918; together with 11 drypoints from "Twelve Drypoints of the War 1914-1918", 1925. £15,000 to
    <b><center>Forum Auctions<br>Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper<br>28th September 2023</b>
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Guild of Women Binders.- Watts (Alaric A.) <i>Lyrics of the Heart: with other poems</I>, in a stunning richly gilt green crushed morocco by the Guild of Women Binders, Longman, 1851. £12,000 to £18,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Cosway binding.- Dodgson (Charles Lutwidge). "Lewis Carroll". <i>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,</i> in a Cosway binding with miniatures by Miss C.B. Currie, 1868. £10,000 to £15,000.
    <b>Forum Auctions, Sep. 28:</b> Fleming (Ian). <i>Casino Royale,</i> first edition, first impression, 1953. £18,000 to £22,000.
  • <center><b>Swann Auction Galleries View Our Record Breaking Results</b>
    <b>Swann:</b> Charles Monroe Schulz, <i>The Peanuts gang,</i> complete set of 13 drawings, ink, 1971. Sold June 15 — $50,000.
    <b>Swann:</b> Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Family Archive of Photographs & Letters. Sold June 1 — $60,000.
    <b>Swann:</b> Victor H. Green, <i>The Negro Motorist Green Book,</i> New York, 1949. Sold March 30 — $50,000.
    <b>Swann:</b> William Shakespeare, <i>King Lear; Othello;</i> [and] <i>Anthony & Cleopatra;</i> Extracted from the First Folio, London, 1623. Sold May 4— $185,000.
    <center><b>Swann Auction Galleries View Our Record Breaking Results</b>
    <b>Swann:</b> William Samuel Schwartz, <i>A Bridge in Baraboo, Wisconsin,</i> oil on canvas, circa 1938. Sold February 16 — $32,500.
    <b>Swann:</b> Lena Scott Harris, <i>Group of approximately 65 hand-colored botanical studies, all apparently California native plants,</i> hand-colored silver prints, circa 1930s. Sold February 23 — $37,500.
    <b>Swann:</b> Suzanne Jackson, <i>Always Something To Look For,</i> acrylic & pencil on linen canvas, circa 1974. Sold April 6 — $87,500.
    <b>Swann:</b> Gustav Klimt, <i>Das Werk von Gustav Klimt,</i> complete with 50 printed collotype plates, Vienna & Leipzig, 1918. Sold June 15 — $68,750.

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