A few weeks ago I flew to Boston for the three-day ABAA and one day Shadow Book Fairs and was well rewarded for they seemed the best New England fairs in quite some time. The dealers were upbeat and the prices appealing. ABAA fairs always feature the best material and price it liberally. The Shadow Fair by comparison has only the 8:00 am to noon period on Saturday to get the buyer’s attention before the more powerful ABAA Fair opens for the second of its three days and draws the crowd away. So while the ABAA feels like a courtship the Shadow Fair is more like speed dating. I enjoy the ...
Eric Caren, the ephemera master-collector has done many unusual things in his life. He was collecting ephemera long before most institutions, dealers and collectors were paying attention to it. A...
The owner of what must have been the greatest private book collection in the world has died at the age of 100. William Scheide of Princeton, New Jersey, died on November 14, 2014. He celebrated his...
My parents had not yet entered the bookselling trade in 1943 the year I was born in Detroit, but all the early warnings signs were there. From the time I was a little girl my father and I would go ...
A pair of unrecorded songs written by Bob Dylan shortly before he turned from unknown struggling Greenwich Village artist to the spokesman for a generation are being offered for sale at Christie's ...
Edna Vincent Millay wrote this poem in 1866
The bustle in the house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon this earth, --
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting...
It's useful to have a lesson in care every once in awhile when you are in the trade of selling valuable books. Last month, we saw the case of a bookseller who allowed her “friend” and neighbor unmo...
I had occasion to preview Americana sales at Doyle and Swann this past week and in the days leading up to these sales it seemed like both would simply fit into the New York continuum of high level ...
The estate of the great children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak has turned into a battleground between competing entities. Perhaps no one is more to blame than Mr. Sendak himself. Sen...
The story of the most lovable French rascal Louis-Dominique Cartouche (1693-1721) became a personal obsession after I first wrote about him on this very website two years or so ago. I had bought an...
Hailing from Castlecomer, Ireland, Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers is an auction house dealing in fine art and rare books whose results are archived into the AED. On December 9th, 2014, their sale of Rare...
An unlikely institution recently received a surprising gift – a large collection of old, often valuable books. The King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham, England, was given a significa...
The fall and early Winter are busy times for auction houses, and the auction house Profiles in History is no different. With five sales over the course of four days in December, three of which we’l...
Known for his dedication to the collection of maps in the Americana field, as well as his sizeable holdings of Audubon, Graham Arader and Arader Galleries present From Sea to Shining Sea: Art of Am...
With a veritable cornucopia of rare and significant material, Christie’s New York will soon be offering collectors of rare books, manuscripts, maps, ephemera, and autographs a sale to be grateful f...
Amazon and book publisher Hachette have come to an agreement that has been welcomed by authors, and, at least on the surface, by the two parties. Amazon has been engaged in a long-running power str...
U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote has accepted a strange settlement in the Apple e-book price fixing case, though it was obvious she didn't much like it. Evidently, the winning party in her cou...
This December there are 107 scheduled auctions in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera fields. The material is complex ranging from less important to once-in a-life-time possibilities. It is...
This month we review 9 new bookseller catalogues. Variety is the watchword here. However, one of the most popular of collecting fields, travel and exploration, does have multiple entrants, with Bri...
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, inscribed by the author pre-publication. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Autograph sketchleaf including a probable draft for the E flat Piano Quartet, K.493, 1786. £150,000 to £200,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
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Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 156: Cornelis de Jode, Americae pars Borealis, double-page engraved map of North America, Antwerp, 1593.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 206: John and Alexander Walker, Map of the United States, London and Liverpool, 1827.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 223: Abraham Ortelius, Typus Orbis Terrarum, hand-colored double-page engraved world map, Antwerp, 1575.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 233: Aaron Arrowsmith, Chart of the World, oversize engraved map on 8 sheets, London, 1790 (circa 1800).
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 239: Fielding Lucas, A General Atlas, 81 engraved maps and diagrams, Baltimore, 1823.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 240: Anthony Finley, A New American Atlas, 15 maps engraved by james hamilton young on 14 double-page sheets, Philadelphia, 1826.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 263: John Bachmann, Panorama of the Seat of War, portfolio of 4 double-page chromolithographed panoramic maps, New York, 1861.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 265: Sebastian Münster, Cosmographei, Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1558.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 271: Abraham Ortelius, Epitome Theatri Orteliani, Antwerp: Johann Baptist Vrients, 1601.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 283: Joris van Spilbergen, Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque Indiae, Leiden: Nicolaus van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 285: Levinus Hulsius, Achtzehender Theil der Newen Welt, 14 engraved folding maps, Frankfurt: Johann Frederick Weiss, 1623.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 341: John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, Plate 26, London, 1827.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/00d5fd41-2542-4a80-b119-4886d4b9925f.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.")
