Rare Book Monthly Articles - December - 2014 Issue

Eight Days on the Road to Perfection

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 ...

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Eric Caren of the Caren Archives offers: A tale of two collections = over 1 million historical paper items

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...

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The Greatest Book Collector Dies at 100

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...

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Memories of the Dealer’s Daughter - Bookselling as it was in the 1960s

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 ...

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Manuscripts for a Pair of Early Unrecorded Bob Dylan Songs to be Sold at Christie's on December 4

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 ...

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Thomas ‘Tim’ Heath Belk: The bustle in the house

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...

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Next Time Ask for a Signature - $7,000 Bible Stolen from Front Door

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...

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Fireworks in Americana in New York and Los Angeles

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 ...

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A Museum and a Foundation Battle for Items from Maurice Sendak's Estate

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...

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Cartouche’s skull, the ultimate trick?

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...

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Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers: A Decidedly Irish December 9th Sale

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...

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Books in the News: An Unlikely Gift, an Antarctic Discovery, and Serious Water Damage

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...

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Profiles In History: Three Important Sales on Three Diverse Subjects

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...

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Arader Galleries Returns to the Rooms December 6th

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...

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Christie's New York: Americana and Botany Collectors Converge

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...

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Amazon and Hachette Agree to Bury the Hachet... But Who Won?

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...

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Court Accepts Tentative Settlement in Apple's E-Book Price-Fixing Case

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...

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Auctions in December

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...

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Nine New Catalogues Reviewed for December

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...

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Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: U.S. / European Shipping Archive 1800-1814. The Widow Bermingham & Sons Collection. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Bunreacht na hÉireann. Constitution of Ireland. An important copy of the First Printing of De Valera’s new Constitution, approved in 1938. Signed by the Constitution Cabinet. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: A Rare Complete Run of the Cuala Press Broadsides. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Grose (Francis). The Antiquities of Ireland, 2vols. folio London (for S. Hooper) 1791. Magnificent Hand-Coloured Copy - Only 25 Copies. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Cantillon (Richard). Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General, Traduit de l'Anglois, Sm. 8vo London (Fletcher Gyles) 1756. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Gregory, (Lady Augusta). Spreading the News: The Rising of the Moon: The Poorhouse (with Douglas Hyde). Being Vol. IX of the Abbey Theatre Series. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Lavery (Lady Hazel). A moving series of three A.L.S. and a Telegram to Gen. Eoin O'Duffy, July-August 1927, expressing her grief at the death of Kevin O'Higgins. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Dampier (Wm.) Nouveau Voyage Autour du Monde, ou l'on descrit en particulier l'Isthme de l'Amerique…, 2 vols. in one, Amsterdam, 1698. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Howell (James). Instructions for Forreine Travel Shewing by what Cours, and in what Compasse of Time…, London, 1642. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Rowling (J.K.) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 8vo, L. (Bloomsbury) 1999, First Edn., First Printing of Deluxe Collectors Edn. Signed. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: James (Wm.) A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of The Late War Between Great Britain and The United States of America. 2 vols. Lond. 1818. €650 to €900.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: The Laws of the United States, Published by Authority, 3 vols. Philadelphia (Richard Folwell) 1796. €600 to €800.

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