Some Advice for Booksellers, Russian Bookselling, Abe's Latest Top 10

- by Michael Stillman

USA Today offers some advice to booksellers.


10. Sefer Tehilim by Sebastian Münster, a Basel printing of this 16th century work by the German Hebrew scholar. $3,464.

9. The Bible, an edition limited to 75 copies, printed by the Nonesuch Press of London in 1927. $3,750.

8. Histoire de la mesure du temps par les horloges by Ferdinand Berthoud, a book on time measurement by the Swiss watchmaker, published in 1802. $4,340.

7. Don Juan by Lord Byron, six volumes of Byron's masterpiece published from 1819-1824. $4,500.

6. Beskrivelse over Eylandet St. Croix I America I Vest-Indien by Reimert Haagensen, an early look at St. Croix, Virgin Islands, published in Copenhagen in 1798. $4,500.

5. Du Côte De Chez Swann by Marcel Proust, 1913 first edition of the first installment of the seven-volume "In Search of Lost Time." $5,000.

4. A Touch of Frost, Frost at Christmas, Night Frost, Hard Frost and Winter Frost by R.D. Wingfield, a collection of first editions of Wingfield's English detective set. $5,609.

3. Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis Medici De Rerum Varietate Libri XVII by Gerolamo Cardano, a 1557 edition of Da Vinci's friend's work on natural phenomena. $7,017.

2. The Origin of Species, first American printing from 1860 of Charles Darwin's [r]evolutionary classic. $11,000.

1. Libellus ysagogicus Abdilasi Id est servi gloriosi dei: qui dicitur Alchabitius ad magisterium iuditiorum astrorum by Alchabitius, an incunabulum (1485) printing of the 10th century Arabian astrologer's work. $12,000.