• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
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    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2021 Issue

Of Montaigne’s Thoughts and Flatulence

You can learn all about Montaigne's bowel movements in his journey to Italy.

When I decided to visit Italy lately, I chose to visit it in the year 1580, and alongside Michel de Montaigne! The way I see it, if you’re gonna travel through space and time, why not do it with some style? Filled with great expectations, I bought a copy of Journal de Voyage de Montaigne en Italie... (Paris, 1774). One of the three most important French philosophers of all times couldn’t be bad company; well, except when he speaks about his urine and his flatulence—and he speaks about it... a lot.



This is the story of a long lost Montaigne manuscript that wasn’t published until 1774 in Rome and Paris. “In the third book of his Essays, Montaigne mentions his travels,” Meusnier de Querlon writes in the preface. So we (...) were quite surprised that such a man hadn’t said anything about this experience.” In fact, he had. Almost two hundred years later, Father Prunis went to consult the archives at Montaigne’s castle. “He was showed an old safe full of waste paper; that’s how he found the original manuscript of Montaigne’s Voyages.This small in-Folio volume of 278 pages was partly written by Montaigne’s secretary (as Montaigne dictated to him), and partly by himself—in his own hand. It was unanimously recognized as Montaigne’s work and published by Le Jay in 1774. Finding a never published before manuscript of one of the most important French thinkers of all time is promising! “The particular and full knowledge he had of Man betrays a man of action,” Querlon states. “You can’t penetrate Man from the dark room of a cabinet.” But when Montaigne left his castle on June 22, 1580 it wasn’t for the sake of philosophy. “His health was a great motivation—he was suffering from kidney stones.” And Lord knows his kidney stones are less fascinating than his essays.



Montaigne didn’t trust doctors, and he considered mineral baths as the best medicine. Consequently, he gives a lot of details about the various waters he drank along the way, and about the effects they had on his health. As Querlon puts it, “it makes his journal boring and quite dry.Boring... and also embarrassing. “The water Montaigne’s had drunken on Tuesday,” his secretary writes as he dictates, “had made him do three stools, and they had all emptied before noon.” Querlon adds a footnote that resounds with the reader’s own reflexion: “He could have spared us such details, but we didn’t want to touch the original text.” After drinking some mineral water in Italy, Montaigne didn’t obtain the desired results, as “water found its way from the behind rather than from the front, and provoked several liquid and light stools that I dropped effortlessly.All right, good to know. At one point, they sprinkle Montaigne with hot water—and guess what? That makes him fart. “I also felt immediate relief from my right testicle, which is often swollen—I therefore concluded that this swelling is caused by some gas that dwell therein.” A fart coming out of a testicle? As the French would say, Montaigne qui rit, qui pète, qui prend son pénis pour une trompette (Montaigne who laughs, who farts, who takes his penis for a trumpet)!



Nonetheless this journal helps us to understand that physical pain was part of everyday life at the time. Medicine was inefficient and the poor alike the rich had to endure permanent discomfort—if not deadly pains. They lived under the yoke of physical grief, and they had integrated it to their spiritual life. A good Christian wouldn’t complain—even when the pain became unbearable. Pain was God’s will, and who are you to question God’s ways? Plus, hadn’t Jesus Christ himself died on the cross in terrible pain for you? Do you deserve this honour if you complain against your fate, you ungrateful creature? You don’t always realize how aspirin has changed our lives.



Then, and it might seem contradictory, physical pain forced people to focus on themselves—and we know that the rise of individualism is a characteristic of Humanism; and Montaigne launched Humanism in France. So are “liquid stools” and “red urine” at the root of humanism? More seriously, self-centeredness might have something to do with pain. As a matter of fact, Querlon calls Montaigne ”an egoistseveral times in his notes. But we know how the slightest pain can become obsessive. And it’s a good thing to underline that Montaigne was a body as well as an “esprit”.



At the end of the day, there are too many tedious passages in this book, and not enough relevant ones. And most of the time, the latter are just agreeable—like Montaigne talking about his late and famous friend: “This morning, I had a painful thought for M. de la Boétie, and it lasted for so long that it hurt me badly.” And that’s it. There are some entertaining descriptions here and there—but all in all, if you erase Montaigne’s name from the title page, you end up with a pale travel book. Yes—but who can erase Montaigne’s name?



Montaigne’s Voyage en Italie... is a sought-after book, and a good copy is worth around $600. It comes as two in-12 volumes with a frontispiece showing Montaigne’s portrait. If you’re a great fan of his Essays—and who isn’t?—then, this Journal is worth the read. But when I’ll be able to travel to Italy again, I won’t take this book with me, but rather Du Bellay’s Les Regrets. The way I see it, if you’re gonna read a book, why not read a good one?



TE



Rare Book Monthly

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