By Bruce McKinney
There are many recent reports of slower sales in the book business and few sellers are exempt from the downturn. The February book fairs in California underperformed and the upcoming fairs in New York will be conducted in an environment of uncertainty. As a person interested enough in books and works on paper to be reading this article you are potentially one of the those attending. There are many good reasons. Let's consider them.
There are three shows occuring within blocks of each other with more than 270 dealers participating. One is the ABAA's annual New York...
by Renée Magriel Roberts
So, what currently has several issues of the New York Times Tuesday science edition, American Creation by Joseph J. Ellis, samples pages of Atonement by Ian McEwan and ...
By Karen Wright While in San Francisco for the Antiquarian Book Fair in February, we had lunch at Café Claude with our friend Justine Berkeley, Logistics Manager at PBA Galleries on Kearny Street. ...
By Michael Stillman A museum hosting one of the largest collections of Lincoln material in the world will be closing its doors on June 30, leading to the question, what will become of its huge coll...
By Bruce McKinney
About a month ago I bid for and won a 1913 Middletown, New York phone book. As I
have learned, this being the third early Hudson Valley phone book I've bought in
eBay ...
By Bruce McKinney
The April Comet
When people think about books and look online they seem at first glance to be a
single universe. Fiction and non-fiction exist side by side as do books ...
By Michael StillmanA copy of the Magna Carta has found its way back home to the National Archives in Washington. Of course, this is not the original home for this document. It resided in England fo...
By Bruce McKinney
On AE we work toward the integration of the various segments of book buying and selling into a single universe in which collectors and dealers can understand who has what, find e...
By Michael Stillman
Biblio recently put its website through a facelift. The third largest, and youngest of the major bookselling sites has regularly made a point of pushing forward aggressively ...
An exhibition that connects images, art and the written word will be continuing at the Grolier Club in New York from now through April 26. Facing the Late Victorians: Portraits of Writers and Art...
By Bruce McKinney
The subject of the May issue of the Comet will be Pamphlets, Broadsides and Ephemera. It is one of the great breakthrough collecting areas in the internet era. This type of mat...
By Michael Stillman
The Rosenbach Museum and Library will get an official historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission, with ceremonies to be held on April 2 at 11:00 a.m....
By Michael Stillman
Hordern House Rare Books of Sydney, Australia, has announced the publication of the fourth and final volume in their massive Encyclopedia of Exploration. The author is Ray How...
Fourteen new bookseller catalogues are reviewed in Section II this month. The American Southwest and Mexico are the subjects of Almagre Books latest offering, the American West and its cast of char...
ALDE, Apr. 8: GUEVARA (ANTONIO DE). Histoire de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, vray miroir et horloge des Princes. Paris, Pierre et Galliot du Pré, frères, 1565. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: HEURES DE LA VIERGE. Horæ in laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ ad usum Romanum. Paris, Charles L'Angelier, 1556. €4,000 to €5,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: MONTAIGNE (MICHEL DE). Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l'autheur… Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1595. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [ROJAS (FERNANDO DE)]. Celestina, tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea, tradotta de lingua castigliana in italiano idioma… Venise, 1531. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CAMÕES (LUÍS DE). Os Lusiadas. Lisbonne, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1613. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Bruxelles, Roger Velpius & Huberto Antonio, 1611. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: LA FONTAINE (JEAN DE). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris, Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin, 1678-1694. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Madrid, Joaquin Ibarra, 1780. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: DIDEROT (DENIS) ET JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1765. €15,000 to €20,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Les Laboureurs. Poème tiré de Jocelyn… Lyon, J. A. Henry, 1883. €8,000 to €10,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. Livre de prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Lyon, [A. Roux], 1886. €5,000 to €6,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
