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<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
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<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
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<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 €
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<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
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.