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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>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
<i>In The News:</i> One New E-Reader, One Cancelled, A Cavernous Library, Abe's Top 10
By Michael Stillman
Orders are now being accepted at Borders.com for the new electronic reader from Kobo. Shipments are scheduled to begin June 17. It joins a growing list of electronic readers, including both devices dedicated to books such as Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook, and devices with a broader range of uses such as Apple's iPad.
Don't look for any spectacular new features from the Kobo. That is not its aim. What it offers is the lowest price yet for an electronic reader. Its price tag of $149.99 puts it at least $100 under that of any of its competitors. The Kobo lowers the price to the point where even the occasional reader may consider joining the new electronic world of books.
The Kobo offers a six-inch "e-ink" screen (easy on the eyes) in grayscale. It is best suited for text, not images. The major advantage of the Kobo reader, besides its price, is the weight - under 8 ounces. The Kindle weighs a little over 10 ounces, the Nook just over 12. Borders states that the Kobo can store around 1,000 books, and if that isn't enough for you, a card can raise it to 4,000. It comes preloaded with 100 classic books. It does not connect directly to the internet for downloads like other e-Readers. You connect it to a computer via a USB cable or wireless Bluetooth connection to load books.
Electronic books can be purchased from Borders or Kobo, or other vendors who supply texts in the appropriate Adobe format. In other words, unlike Kindle, which is a reader dedicated to books in the format provided by Amazon, the Kobo is meant to receive books from many vendors. Similarly, electronic books received in this format can also be read on other devices such as RIM's Blackberry. While Borders is selling the Kobo readers, and offering the 1 million books Kobo has available on their website, this is really a Kobo project, not a Borders' one. The major shareholder in Kobo is Canada's largest bookseller, Chapters/Indigo, although Borders and others are also invested in the company.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced that it has dropped its "Courier" project, at least for now. The Courier was to be an electronic device to compete not only with the Kindle and Kobo, but more sophisticated devices such as the iPad. Along with being an electronic reader and internet accessing device, it was also supposedly going to include handwriting recognition. It is not known whether any prototypes were ever built, or whether it was still in the conceptual stage when cancelled. One interesting aspect of the Courier for book readers is that it was to contain two screens. It would have opened like a book, to reveal facing screens like facing pages of a book. That certainly would have made for a more book-like feel when using it as an electronic reader. Whether this would have been a major selling feature or a quaint vestige of the past is unknown.
On May 26, iPad maker Apple's stock value exceeded that of rival Microsoft. Ten years ago, Microsoft's value was 35 times that of Apple, and many doubted the latter would survive. As the above news reinforces, Apple has been on the cutting edge of technology in the past decade; Microsoft has not. There are consequences.