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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 -
Rose City Book & Paper Fair
June 14-15, 2025
1000 NE Multnomah, Portland
ROSECITYBOOKFAIR.COM -
Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: BELLEFOREST (François de). La cosmographie universelle de tout le monde. €12,000 to €15,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS (Louis Charles). Mappe-monde, ou Carte Generale de la Terre. €5,000 to €6,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: BLAEU (Willem Janszoon & Joan). Theatrum Sabaudiae. €18,000 to €20,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: LINASSI. Ferdinando Ie Maria Anna Carolina nel Litorale in Settembre 1844. €4,000 to €5,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: AMBROSOLI (Francesco). Monumento a Francesco Primo in Vienna. €3,000 to €4,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: Plano de la plaza de Mesina y de su ciudadel y castiglios. €5,000 to €6,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ROCKSTUHL (Alois Gustav), GILLE (Florent A.). 78 Lithographies du Musée de Tzarskoe-Selo. €1,000 to €1,500.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: Chtchedrovski, Ignatiy Stepanovitch. €2,000 to €3,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DE BRUYN (Cornelis). Voyage au Levant. €3,000 to €5,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ABI ISHAQ AHMAD B. IBRAHIM AL-THAʿLABI (M. 1035) : TROISIÈME VOLUME DU KASHF WA-L-BAYAN ʻAN TAFSIRI AL-QURʼAN. €3,000 to €5,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS (Louis Charles). L’Afrique. €3,000 to €4,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DE BRUYN (Cornelis). Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes orientales. €1,500 to €2,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS. (Louis Charles). Amérique septentrionale et Méridionale. €4,000 to €5,000.Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ÉLIOT (J.B.) ; MONDHARE (Louis Joseph). Carte du théatre de la guerre actuel entre les anglais et les treize Colonies Unies de l'Amérique Septentrionale. €5,000 to €6,000.
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Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 748. Second volume of Blaeu's atlas featuring 89 maps of the Americas and Asia (1642) Est. $12,000 - $15,000Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 12. A world map with popular cartographic myths and unique embellishments (1788) Est. $3,000 - $3,750Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 30. One of the most sought-after charts from Cellarius' work (1708) Est. $1,200 - $1,500Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 38. Anti-Vietnam War persuasive cartography on a velvet poster (1971) Est. $350 - $425Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 43. Ortelius' influential map of the New World - second plate (1584) Est. $4,750 - $6,000Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 95. Scarce German map illustrating the French & Indian War (1755) Est. $8,000 - $9,500Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 149. Bachmann's dramatic view of the Mid-Atlantic region (1864) Est. $1,200 - $1,500Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 373. De Jode's very rare map of Europe with costumed figures (1593) Est. $6,000 - $7,500Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 674. De Bry's Petits Voyages, Part VII with all plates and map of Sri Lanka (1606) Est. $1,400 - $1,700Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 704. The first printed map devoted to the Pacific in full contemporary color (1589) Est. $7,500 - $9,000Old World Auctions (April 23):
Lot 734. Superb hand-colored image of the Tree of Jesse (1502) Est. $700 - $850
Rare Book Monthly
Walking Tour Of New York’s Antiquarian Book Sellers Part II: Manhattan’s Upper East Side
By Abby Tallmer
Welcome to Part Two of our “Walking Tour of New York City’s Rare and Antiquarian Book Sellers.” This section focuses on such book sellers located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This article is the second in a series in which we at Æ Monthly have compiled, for the use of visiting and resident bibliophiles, a list of interesting and notable used, rare, and antiquarian book shops and book sellers throughout Manhattan. Because the borough is so vast, we have chosen to divide this series into geographic districts. This second article covers the area roughly known as the Upper East Side of Manhattan, home to many chic shops and expensive pieces of real estate.
To recap a bit from last month’s “Walking Tour” article (on Midtown Manhattan book sellers): Let’s face it: New York City has always been a booklover’s kind of town. From its founding, New York, and specifically Manhattan, has served as a center of cultural literacy and as a haven for writers and artists of all sorts.
In addition to the many notable literary, artistic, and political figures who sprung from New York, the city has long been known for the many writers, artists, and other historical figures and radical figures who sought haven there. In this sort of rich, diverse cultural environment – which has spanned centuries and has included all sorts of interwoven yet separate literary, artistic, and intellectual communities – it is natural that New York has long had a tradition of housing great bookstores and book sellers.
Especially prominent in its history is the city’s link to great rare and antiquarian bookstore and book sellers. New York, specifically Manhattan, has since the 1900s acted as host to a growing number of used, rare, and antiquarian book dealers and prominent book auction houses. According to both this author’s observations and also according to this author’s perusal of a handy and fascinating little booklet called The Bookman’s Guide To New York (Worksman’s Bookshop, 50 East 13th Street, N.Y.C., 1939, 32 pp.), the geographical divisions of these book stores and auction houses have evolved radically over the years. Interestingly, according to The Bookman’s Guide To New York, in 1939 nearly all “Old & Rare Bookshops” in Manhattan were located in Midtown. Of the list of 28 bookshops in this area listed by the Bookman’s Guide, none to this author’s knowledge remain in their original setting: some have relocated and the vast majority are closed and have become figures of booklore history. The Bookman’s Guide also lists a separate section called “Americana,” presumably dealing with bookshops that deal in that category. Only 5 bookshops in this category are listed, again all in Midtown Manhattan; and again, of these 5, I believe that all have closed and have become part of our rich bookselling history.
Then again, life in Manhattan as life anywhere is a circle. New and eminent bookstores have popped up to replace the great shops of yore, and no one can say that there is not a plethora of used, rare, and antiquarian bookshops still operating within the confines of Manhattan.