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Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT. "Scene af: Røverne i Vissenberg i Fyen." in Harpen, 1822.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST THREE FAIRY TALE PAMPHLETS, WITH ALL INDICES AND TITLE PAGES. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: THE FIRST FAIRY TALES WITH A SIGNED CARTE DE VISITE OF ANDERSEN AS FRONTIS. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: KARL LAGERFELD. Original pastel and ink drawing in gold, red and black for Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes (1992), "La cassette de l'Empereur."Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY OF THE SIXTH PAMPHLET FOR PETER KOCH. Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn, Second Series, Third Pamphlet. 1841. Publisher's wrappers, complete with all pre- and post-matter.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN RARE AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED IN ENGLISH from "The Ugly Duckling," c.1860s.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HEINRICH LEFLER, ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR FOR ANDERSEN'S SNOW QUEEN, "Die Schneekönigin," 1910.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST EDITION OF ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH. Wonderful Stories for Children. London, 1846.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN ON MEETING CHARLES DICKENS. Autograph Letter Signed ("H.C. Andersen") in English to William Jerdan, July 20, 1847.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR EDGAR COLLIN. Nye Eventyr og Historier. Anden Raekke. 1861.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: DOLL HOUSE FURNITURE BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, DECORATED WITH FANTASTICAL CUT-OUTS, for the children of Jonna Stampe (née Drewsen), his godchildren.Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR GEORG BRANDES. Dryaden. Et Eventyr fra Udstillingstiden i Paris 1867. 1868.
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Jeschke Jádi
Rare Book Auction 155
Saturday April 26, 2025Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 962. Baird. United States Exploring Expedition. Philadelphia 1858.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 772. Edith Holland Norton. Brazilian Flowers. Coombe Croft 1893.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 49. Petrarca. Das Gluecksbuch, Augsburg 1536.Jeschke Jádi
Rare Book Auction 155
Saturday April 26, 2025Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 1496. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 8. Augustinus. De moribus ecclesie. Cologne 1480.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 17. Heures a lusaige de Noyon. Paris 1504.Jeschke Jádi
Rare Book Auction 155
Saturday April 26, 2025Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 13. Schedel. Buch der Chronicken. Nürnberg 1493.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 957. Donovan. Insects of China. London 1798.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 123. A holy martyr. Tuscany, Florence, mid-14th century.Jeschke Jádi
Rare Book Auction 155
Saturday April 26, 2025Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 438. Dante. La Divine Comédie. Paris 1963.Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 602. Firdausi. Histoire de Minoutchehr. Paris 1919Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 994. Westwood. Oriental Entomology. London 1848. -
Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 124: Henri Courvoisier-Voisin, et alia, [Recueil de Vues de Paris et ses Environs], depicting precursors of the modern roller coaster, Paris, [1814-1819?]. $2,000 to $3,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 148: Pablo Picasso & Fernando de Rojas, La Célestine, First Edition, Paris, 1971. $30,000 to $40,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 201: Omar Khayyam & Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat, William Bell Scott's copy of the First Edition, London, 1859. $20,000 to $30,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 223: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, First Edition, extra-illustrated with hand-colored plates by Palinthorpe, London, 1861. $7,000 to $9,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 248: L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, First Edition, inscribed by the illustrator, Chicago & New York, 1900. $20,000 to $30,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 305: Tycho Brahe & Pierre Gassendi, Tychonis Brahei Vita, Paris, 1654. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. $8,000 to $12,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 338: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Almagestum Novum, two folio volumes, Bologna, 1651. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. $8,000 to $10,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 350: Tobias Cohn, Ma'aseh Toviyyah, first edition, Venice, 1707-8. $3,000 to $5,000.Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 359: Alan Turing, Computing, Machinery, and Intelligence, first edition, Edinburgh, 1950. $3,000 to $5,000.
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Sotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USDSotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USDSotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USDSotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USDSotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USDSotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBPSotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBPSotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Rare Book Monthly
Identifying First Editions: The Fascination of Points of Issue
By Renée Magriel Roberts
Seeking a first edition is an ongoing preoccupation of any bookseller. We all know that the difference between a first edition and a second printing just after the first can be very significant.
For example, in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (London: Macmillan, 1872) prices range from $250 - $1000 for a second printing, but $1500 - $5500 for a first, depending upon condition, binding, and other amenities. The only thing that distinguishes a first and second printing of this book is a tiny typo on page 21: instead of the correct word "wabe" (as in "gyre and gimble in the wabe" in "Jabberwocky"), the typesetter set the word as "wade". A "d" instead of a "b" makes all the difference. Counter-intuitively it is the incorrectness of the typesetter that makes the book valuable, rather than the corrected printing with the intended words of the author.
Now, as it happens, we sold a copy of this book about a year ago acquired from another dealer. When it arrived we noticed a smudge right over the "d" (or was it a "b"?) in what should have been "wade", immediately making us suspicious that somebody had tried to alter the critical letter in order to make the book appear to be a first edition.
We couldn't see what was going on with the naked eye, or even clearly with the magnification we ordinarily use to look at the tiny signatures in plates or other minutiae. So we took the book to our very talented bookbinder who subjected it to a number of other tests. He measured the height of the other "d"s in the book and examined the type style, explaining that if a word is scraped off the page and reprinted it rarely conforms to other irregularities in the type. After the word passed that test we took the book upstairs to an engineer who had a very high magnification light table. Even if a word is scraped off and then reprinted exactly, a light table will show if the paper has been altered. Happily, it was not. The smudge was, after all, just a smudge, perhaps made by somebody pointing out the "point" that made the book a first edition.
This kind of technical determination is a bit extreme, but the necessity of identifying points is all too common, particularly in literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where multiple issues of the same book occurred in the same year (a "first issue" and a "second issue") and the only distinguishing feature is the existence of typesetting errors of spelling, punctuation, additions, or omissions; or a binding difference in the kind or color of material or decoration, the placement of the titles on the binding, the placement of illustrations, any difference related to the dustjacket, collation, or any other consistently distinguishing feature that only occurs in the first issue and was corrected or changed in subsequent issues of the same year.