Michael Thompson was a bookseller, rising through the chances and opportunities that life provided, to ply the trade for essentially his entire life. He was bookman of the old school.
The road to perdition and ruin was discovered early, when he was a graduate student at the University of Texas and met Jake Zeitlin, then a bookseller, publisher, collector, poet and intellectual in Los Angeles. Michael was already a bookseller but unschooled and unseasoned. One thing led to another and Mr. Thompson was hired by Mr. Zeitlin where he did yeoman service and learned the trade. Five years ...
The ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America) has issued a call to the public to help locate books missing from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Recently, the Carnegie Library's rar...
On a recent Saturday, flipping through the now hundreds of TV channels looking for something worth watching I chanced across the future of important rare and collectible paper auctions. There, at ...
LiveAuctioneers reported record sales and substantial growth during the first half of 2018. LiveAuctioneers conducts online bidding for almost 5,000 auction houses, galleries, and dealers in the fi...
In 1772, John Gabriel Stedman, a young and “romantic” English soldier, embarked for the New World to fight against the “revolted Negroes” of Surinam. The narrative of this extraordinary travel beca...
A Texas man has been arrested on two counts of burglary of a habitation for stealing comic books, along with a couple of rugs and other things. Marcus Alan Benner, 41, was charged with taking the c...
Oak Knoll Fest XX is scheduled for October 5th – October 7th, 2018. The theme this year is “Bringing it on Home” in which printers, booksellers, and collectors discuss that theme in a free symposi...
Always a collector's favorite, Boxborough Paper Town will be held on Saturday, September 15, 2018. Subtitled "The Vintage Paper, Book Advertising Collectibles Show," you will find all sorts of pap...
The San Francisco Map Fair will take place in the Lodge at the Regency Center, 1290 Sutter Street, in San Francisco, California.
The San Francisco Map Fair is sponsored by the History in Your H...
You know summer is almost over if the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair is about to happen. It is, in keeping with the name, in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint, at 72 Noble Street ...
This month, UK-based auction house Dominic Winter Auctioneers is celebrating its 30thanniversary with 180 lots of Fine Books Manuscripts organized under six headings: early English and continental...
Old World Auctions, the online-only auction house specializing in maps and cartography since 1977, is currently hosting its 169thauction comprising 823 lots of antique maps, plans, charts, globes, ...
For those with an interest in learning from whence came English law, The Lawbook Exchange has published a paperback edition of a book that takes us back to the days when people used words like "whe...
With summer winding down, many people have been off on vacation, and not too many booksellers are sending catalogues to people who aren't there. The result is we have only three new catalogues to r...
Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
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Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
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.
![Michael R. Thompson [1940-2018]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticleImages/96f4b231-92c9-478d-ab99-c9d856514b2a.png)
![<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/8caddaea-4c1f-47a7-9455-62f53af36e3f.jpg "<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.")
