Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2008 Issue

Victorian Portraits on Display at the Grolier Club in New York

Facing The Late Victorians at the Grolier Club.

Facing The Late Victorians at the Grolier Club.


"Facing the Late Victorians features portraits of dozens of well-known figures such as George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Barrie, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and John Singer Sargent, who dominated the world of the arts, along with pioneering children's book authors and illustrators, such as E. Nesbit and Kate Greenaway. Many of these are rarely seen images, such as the unpublished sketches of themselves that Rudyard Kipling and Aubrey Beardsley included in letters to friends; the comical drawing of William Morris that the painter Edward Burne-Jones added to his guest-book; or Max Beerbohm's savage caricature of Oscar Wilde's head, which seems to decay before our eyes faster than did Dorian Gray's face. But the show ranges widely to include photographs and drawings of many lesser lights whose work was important in advancing British art and literature, including once-celebrated writers such as the feminist novelist Olive Schreiner and the Catholic poet Alice Meynell, as well as the artists Walter Sickert and William Rothenstein.

"The show draws its eighty items from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, which has been assembled over the past thirty years by one of the premier authorities on nineteenth-century book history. That collection of first editions, presentation copies, authors' correspondence, and works of art and design is on loan to the University of Delaware Library. Margaret D. Stetz, the exhibition's curator, is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware.

"Facing the Late Victorians is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated book by Margaret D. Stetz, published by the University of Delaware Press. Copies are available on site at the Grolier Club or may be purchased from Associated University Presses, 2010 Eastpark Boulevard, Cranbury, NJ 08512; Phone (609) 655-4770, e-mail aup440@aol.com, web www.aupresses.com (ISBN: 978-0-87413-992-1).

"Facing the Late Victorians: Portraits of Writers and Artists from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection will be on view at the Grolier Club through April 26, 2008. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10 AM -- 5 PM. Open to the public free of charge. For more information call Megan Smith, Exhibitions Coordinator at the Grolier Club at (212) 838-6690 or go to www.grolierclub.org."

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana
    27 January 2026
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary pair of books from George Washington’s field library, marking the conjunction of Robert Rogers, George Washington, and Henry Knox. $1,200,000 to $1,800,000.
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: An extraordinary letter marking the conjunction of George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Benjamin Franklin. $1,000,000 to $1,500,000.
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: Virginia House of Delegates. The genesis of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. $350,000 to $500,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Fine Manuscript and Printed Americana
    27 January 2026
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: (Gettysburg). “Genl. Doubleday has taken charge of the battle”: Autograph witness to the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, illustrated by fourteen maps and plans. $200,000 to $300,000.
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: President Lincoln thanks a schoolboy on behalf of "all the children of the nation for his efforts to ensure "that this war shall be successful, and the Union be maintained and perpetuated." $200,000 to $300,000.
    Sotheby’s, Jan. 27: [World War II]. An archive of maps and files documenting the allied campaign in Europe, from the early stages of planning for D-Day and Operation Overlord, to Germany’s surrender. $200,000 to $300,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    29th January 2026
    Forum, Jan. 29: Plato. [Apanta ta tou Platonos. Omnia Platonis opera], 2 parts in 2 vol., editio princeps of Plato's works in the original Greek, Venice, House of Aldus, 1513. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Book of Hours, Use of Rome, In Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum, [Southern Netherlands (probably Bruges), c.1460]. £6,000-8,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Correspondence and documents by or addressed to the first four Viscounts Molesworth and members of their families, letters and manuscripts, 1690-1783. £10,000-15,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    29th January 2026
    Forum, Jan. 29: Shakespeare (William). The Dramatic Works, 9 vol., John and Josiah Boydell, 1802. £5,000-7,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Joyce (James). Ulysses, first edition, one of 750 copies on handmade paper, Paris, Shakespeare and Company, 1922 £8,000-12,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Powell (Anthony). [A Dance to the Music of Time], 12 vol., first editions, each with a signed presentation inscription from the author to Osbert Lancaster, 1951-75. £6,000-8,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    29th January 2026
    Forum, Jan. 29: Chaucer (Geoffrey). Troilus and Criseyde, one of 225 copies on handmade paper, wood-engravings by Eric Gill, Waltham St.Lawrence, 1927. £3,000-4,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Borges (Jorge Luis). Luna de Enfrente, first edition, one of 300 copies, presentation copy signed by the author to Leopoldo Marechal, Buenos Aires, Editorial Proa, 1925. £3,000-4,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Nolli (Giovanni Battista). Nuova Pianta di Roma, Rome, 1748. £6,000-8,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    29th January 2026
    Forum, Jan. 29: Roberts (David). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia, 3 vol., first edition, 1842-49. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Blacker (William). Catechism of Fly Making, Angling and Dyeing, Published by the author, 1843. £3,000-4,000
    Forum, Jan. 29: Herschel (Sir John F. W.) Collection of 69 offprints, extracts and separate publications by Herschel, bound for his son, William James Herschel, 3 vol., [1813-50]. £15,000-20,000

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