Rare Book Monthly Articles - September - 2019 Issue

Rare Book Hub:  Sweet 17

Rare Book Hub: Sweet 17

It seems like only yesterday we started the Americana Exchange but in fact it’s been 17 years.  We joined the information age for the rare book field in September 2002 when we began to digitize standard references for the rare book field.  As a collector I wanted quick, broad access to what was known.  In time this led to our providing broad auction coverage as the number of auction houses, events, and lots exploded.  Soon after, we developed a single search of all upcoming auction lots in the books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera fields.   Fast forward, the world now expects up-to-date i...

Mulvihill Collection acquires celebrated Scots astronomer, Mary Somerville

Mulvihill Collection acquires celebrated Scots astronomer, Mary Somerville

While the Mulvihill Collection focuses mostly on pre-1700 women writers (English, Irish, Dutch), it has recently acquired a special newcomer: Mary Somerville, her 1834 classic, On the Connexion of ...

Here is How to Search All of the Auctions with One Mouse Click

Here is How to Search All of the Auctions with One Mouse Click

We are about to enter the busy season for book and paper auctions. From now through the winter holidays you can expect to see the most, and much of the best material come up for sale. With so many ...

Wright Howes and Howes’ Usiana Revisited

Wright Howes and Howes’ Usiana Revisited

The Lives and Work of Wright and Zoe Howes and the Story of U.S.iana   For collectors of a certain age Wright Howes, the Chicago book dealer and author of Howes’ U.S.iana, is a mythic figure.  Bo...

Comic Relief:  Comic Thief Attempts to Sell Stolen Books to the Wrong Party

Comic Relief: Comic Thief Attempts to Sell Stolen Books to the Wrong Party

Here is a theft story with a happy ending. Actually, it is more than an ordinary happy ending as the irony is absolutely beautiful.   Martin Casas of St. Louis owned a collection of 3,000 comic b...

New Dealer Finds Much to Recommend in the Book Trade

New Dealer Finds Much to Recommend in the Book Trade

Morgan Brynnan, 56, has a longstanding interest in books. The Gridley, CA. resident started as a library page in 1991, eventually got her degree and became a medical and academic librarian. Along t...

Sep. 24: Artist books and other Italian material at Il Ponte Casa d'Aste

Sep. 24: Artist books and other Italian material at Il Ponte Casa d'Aste

On September 24, 2019, Il Ponte Casa d’Aste’s sale of Books and Manuscripts is bringing 230 lots of interesting and varied material to auction in Milan. Some of the highlight sections include artis...

Arthur Dunkelman Appointed Curator of the Kislak Collection at the University of Miami Richter Library

Arthur Dunkelman Appointed Curator of the Kislak Collection at the University of Miami Richter Library

Arthur Dunkelman, Director and curator of the Jay I. Kislak Foundation has been appointed Curator of the Kislak Collection at the University of Miami’s Richter Library.  On September 5th the Kislak...

Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair September 7-8

Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair September 7-8

The Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair, now in its 6th year, returns to the Brooklyn Expo Center, Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday and Sunday September 7-8.  This is a Marvin Getman event, 1 of 6 in th...

Le Gentil de la Barbinais, Too Gentle a Circumnavigator

Le Gentil de la Barbinais, Too Gentle a Circumnavigator

Le Gentil de la Barbinais is the alleged first French circumnavigator. He left Cherbourg, France, in 1714, and came back 4 years later with a detailed relation, Nouveau Voyage Autour du Monde (Pari...

Art Work of Ulster County

Art Work of Ulster County

When you collect extensively in a relatively narrow field and have been conversant in the subject for more than fifty years you don’t expect to find that you’ve never seen or even heard of a primar...

Annual Boxborough Paper Fair Set for Saturday, September 21, 2019

Annual Boxborough Paper Fair Set for Saturday, September 21, 2019

The annual Boxborough Paper Fair is set for Saturday, September 21, this year. Hours are from 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 pm. It will be held, naturally enough, in Boxborough, Massachusetts, at the Boxboro Re...

Scholium Group Experiences Slight Loss for the Year

Scholium Group Experiences Slight Loss for the Year

Scholium Group, parent of rare book seller Shapero Rare Books, reported their financial results recently for the year ending March 31, 2019. They were essentially flat, sales up some, but the botto...

Flood Washes Out Tens of Thousands of Books

Flood Washes Out Tens of Thousands of Books

We have occasional stories of destruction of libraries caused by the elements in the West, but this one from India tells of destruction on an enormous scale. Some 60,000-90,000 books have been dest...

Five New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

Five New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

We are just finishing the summer doldrums, so there are only five new catalogues reviewed this month. Michel Bouvier offers a catalogue of material by and about Victor Hugo and his family. The Will...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    26th March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    26th March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
    Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000
  • Forum Auctions
    Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026
    25 March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Andrews (H.C.) Coloured Engravings of Heaths, 4 vol. in 2, first edition, [1710,--94]-1802-1809-[1830]. £10,000 - £15,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- Cramer (Pierre) and Caspar Stoll. De Uitlandsche Kapellen voorkomende in de drie Waereld-Deelen…,, 5 vol., Amsterdam & Utrecht, 1779-91. £8,000 - £12,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Voyages.- Darwin (Charles) and others. Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, 3 vol. in 4, including Appendix to vol.2, first edition, 1839. £8,000 - £12,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- de Graaf (Willem Diederik Vincent). [Inlandsche Kapellen in beeld], 170 fine original watercolours, [Enkhuizen], [1800-40]. £8,000 - £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026
    25 March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Dresser (Henry Eeles). A History of the Birds of Europe, 9 vol., including supplement, first edition, by the author, 1871-96. £6,000 - £8,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Zoology.- Felines.- Elliot (Daniel Giraud). A Monograph of the Felidæ or Family of the Cats, first edition, for the Subscribers, by the Author, [1878]-1883. £25,000 - £30,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Frisch (Johann Leonard). Vorstellung der Vögel Deutschlandes, 2 vol., first edition, Berlin, Friedr. Wilhelm Birnsteil, [1736]-1763. £40,000 - £60,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Gould (John). The Birds of Great Britain, 5 vol., first edition, by the author, 1862-1873. £30,000 - £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026
    25 March 2026
    Forum, Mar. 25: Pomology.- France.- Poiteau (A.) Pomologie Française. Recueil des Plus Beaux Fruits cultivés en France, 4 vol., Paris, 1846. £30,000 - £40,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- [Robin (Jean)]. Histoire des Plantes, nouvellement trouvées en l'Isle Virgine…,, 1620; with Geoffrey Linocier L'Histoire des plantes, second edition, 1619-20. £3,000 - £4,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Japan.- Siebold (P.F. von). Nippon. Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan, 7 parts in 6 vol., first edition, Leyden, [1832]-1852. £35,000 - £45,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Valentijn (Francois). Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën..., 5 vol. in 8, first edition, Dordrecht [&] Amsterdam, 1724-26. £8,000 - £12,000.
    Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Australia.- Redouté (P.J.).- Ventenat (Étienne Pierre). Jardin de la Malmaison, 2 vol.,, Paris, 1803-04[-05]. £30,000 - £40,000.

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