Bill Reese, who passed away in 2018, was both a rare book dealer and a collector of Americana, other books, prints, and art. It was a great privilege for me to be his client for a decade. In 2002, Bill Reese became the very first member of Americana Exchange (now RareBookHub). In 2022 his exceptional personal collection will be sold at Christie's and it will be a monumental event.
The collection, acquired over decades, will be dispersed in a matter of days and hours: his fourteen thousand days in the field, converted into "May I have an opening bid? On the left, yes in the back and...
What Sotheby's said would be one of the great library sales of recent years has been called off, and for the noblest of reasons. The sale was of the Honresfield Library, one of the greatest British...
It’s a fantasy we all have: Let’s open a really good old style bookstore. We’ll buy an antique building in a sleepy little town on the outskirts of some major metro area and hope that with a lot of...
We have a couple of stories of overdue library books this month. These are not typical overdue books, but ones dating back to the first half of the twentieth century. Such books rarely ever make a ...
Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books [ABAA] has recently moved offices from San Francisco to bucolic Connecticut where the firm will continue to develop its web presence, while issuing occasional virtua...
Books, manuscript, maps, and ephemera take you only so far. It’s possible to disappear into a great story but it’s close to shocking to consider you can personally acquire objects mentioned, pictu...
Style defines the man, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon once said—it also defines the woman, of course; but it was less frequently underlined in the 18th century. That’s probably one of the reasons ...
Every book town has the bookstore. The singular institution run by a bookseller with decades of experience. You need to prepare yourself for such places. Fortify yourself to sustain your focus for ...
Some disturbing news has come out of Hungary recently of concern to those who support freedom of ideas in books. Hungary might not seem an important place on the world stage, but as those cognizant...
Donald Heald, the New York rare book dealer, had been watching the emergence of auctions over the past decade as an alternative to selling at set prices and concluded the market was increasingly in...
Records were set at Freeman's auction in anticipation of July 4 when a copy of the Declaration of Independence sold for over $4 million. According to Freeman's, that was the highest aucrion price e...
A few months ago Helen R. Kahn sold her stock of rare books, maps and manuscripts to Patrick McGahern Books. The news arrived in an email mentioning that the Kahn stock is now offered by the McGah...
Another month, another collectible card setting record prices. However, this one is nowhere even near the price of other cards we have seen. It's not the $5 million+ spent on a Babe Ruth or Mickey ...
This month we review four new bookseller catalogues. Forest Books has a miscellany that seems to cover every imaginable subject. Stuart Lutz Historic Documents has many manuscripts and autographs o...
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.
![The personal collection of William [Bill] S. Reese is to be sold by Christie's beginning in May, 2022](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticleImages/336cf07e-e435-40b7-9e59-e9bd411a6b75.)
![<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.")
