Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2022 Issue

Rewards for the Serious Collector

Highlights from 19th Century Shop's Catalogue 195

Highlights from 19th Century Shop's Catalogue 195

The 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop offers in its Catalogue 195 a collection of 60 books, manuscripts, and photographs representing humankind’s greatest achievements. Highlights include: 

 

Women in Literature, Art, and Science 

  • The newly discovered photographic archive of Emma Frances Johnston, a very rare intact collection of an English female photographer of the 1850s and 1860s
  • A splendid Louisa May Alcott letter on Little Women
  • A rare Caroline Herschel manuscript on her discovery of a comet
  • A tender, poetic letter by Emily Dickinson
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe’s earliest extant literary manuscript

 

Science

  • Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity, a rare inscribed presentation copy
  • Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the only known copy with a scientific inscription by Einstein
  • Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
  • Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric theory announced in the only known copy of a work printed by the printer of his De Revolutionibus
  • An Apollo lunar lander lithograph signed by all 12 men who walked on the Moon and by scores of other major figures in the Apollo program

 

American History

  • A tremendous letter by Frederick Douglass on the coming civil war and the end of slavery
  • An early war-date letter by Abraham Lincoln accepting Southerners to fight in the Union army, offered with
  • A fragment of the bunting from the Ford’s Theatre presidential box on the night of the assassination
  • A superb deluxe thick paper copy of The Federalist

 

Photography

  • A major family album of Carleton Watkins including unique photographs of Watkins in his “camera man” outfit
  • Photograph of Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron, the most famous photographic portrait of a nineteenth-century scientist

  

The printed catalogue, out in just a few days, is available at no charge on request. Or, to go to our website:  https://www.19thshop.com/ 

 

Email info@19thshop.com for a copy.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Heritage Auctions
    Rare Books Signature Auction
    December 15, 2025
    Heritage, Dec. 15: John Donne. Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Bram Stoker. Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1897.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
    Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    December 9-17, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    December 9-17, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.

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