Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2023 Issue

Old Maps.com becomes part of our family

Old Maps.com becomes part of our family

Rare Book Hub is simply the latest effort to aggregate bibliographic and transactional history of collectible books and paper.  Such efforts have long been necessary to focus and update the field’s understanding about books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera.  Old Maps, for more than forty years, has provided perspective about collectible maps and Curt and Marti Griggs has accepted our offer to have their history and scholarship added to ours.   One hundred and seventy-five years ago the world of collectible paper took wing when advances in literacy, printing, and papermaking turned random e...

OldMaps.com:  We have exciting news!

OldMaps.com: We have exciting news!

By Curt and Marti Griggs   We are retiring!  We began our love affair with antique maps nearly forty years ago.  Starting out as collectors, we transitioned into gallery owners, then acquired an ...

New Collective Biography of 14 Black Civil War Surgeons Expands Knowledge of US Racial, Medical and Military History

New Collective Biography of 14 Black Civil War Surgeons Expands Knowledge of US Racial, Medical and Military History

“Without Concealment, Without Compromise, The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons” by independent historian Jill L. Newmark is an important contribution to our knowledge of racial, medical...

AbeBooks Releases List of the Highest Prices Paid for April-June 2023

AbeBooks Releases List of the Highest Prices Paid for April-June 2023

AbeBooks, the premier website for selling old and rare books, has released the list of the twelve most expensive items purchased on their website from April-June 2023. It consists of a mix of books...

Demographics in the Book Field Have Been Changing Rapidly

Demographics in the Book Field Have Been Changing Rapidly

The book trade is an old boys' network. Booksellers are males. Collectors are men, mostly old ones. At least, that is the way it was. It has been changing, though it would be hard to claim either d...

President Obama Writes Letter of Thanks to Librarians for Standing Up for Free Speech

President Obama Writes Letter of Thanks to Librarians for Standing Up for Free Speech

In a time of increasing censorship in libraries across America, America's librarians have been at the forefront of protecting our right to free speech. It is a moral if not legal responsibility for...

Charlotte Corday, Blood in a Brochure.

Charlotte Corday, Blood in a Brochure.

This is a small brochure entitled Charlotte Corday, beheaded in Paris on July 16, 1793, and published in Paris, year 4 (1795). Our particular copy was never cut nor bound, and there are water stain...

“Junky” Old Book Taken to Antiques Road Show Turns Out to be Worth $50,000

“Junky” Old Book Taken to Antiques Road Show Turns Out to be Worth $50,000

You never know. This story is a follow-up on an account from the Antiques Roadshow where a gentleman showed up with an old book by William Shakespeare. It was published in 1655, old but not extreme...

He Wrote 100 Books in Nine Months

He Wrote 100 Books in Nine Months

Tim Boucher is a Canadian writer who has been toiling in obscurity for a couple of decades before hitting the wires recently with an odd achievement. He wrote 100 books in about 9 months. Not even ...

Briefs – August Book Events - Some Fairs and Fests, Mostly Free, Large and Small

Briefs – August Book Events - Some Fairs and Fests, Mostly Free, Large and Small

From the Library of Congress National Book Festival to the Edinburgh Book Fair, August brings some events that book lovers in America, the UK and Canada will find enjoyable. Here are eight diverse ...

Morgan The Magnificent:  The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913)

Morgan The Magnificent: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913)

In the present era book collectors can collect books as well manuscripts, maps and ephemera on their own.  In the receding past, while all those possibilities existed, knowledge and expertise were ...

A Website Owner with 150 Million Viewers in the U. S. Looks to Publish Books

A Website Owner with 150 Million Viewers in the U. S. Looks to Publish Books

The book publishing world may be on the cusp of another major change. We have seen a few in the past couple of decades. First there was online selling, Amazon leading the charge. Then came electron...

Missing 120 Years, A Library Book Finally Makes Its Way Home

Missing 120 Years, A Library Book Finally Makes Its Way Home

Another case of a long overdue library book being returned emerged last month, though this one was longer than most. It was returned over 119 years late. It's safe to say that the anonymous person ...

One New Catalogue Reviewed This Month

One New Catalogue Reviewed This Month

It is well known that August is a favorite month for vacations, particularly among those of greater means who get to choose their time. The result is the number of catalogues mailed at this time of...

Rare Book Monthly

  • 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.
  • 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
  • Books & Autographs
    Wednesday 25 March
    Koller, Mar. 25: KAFKA, FRANZ, SCHRIFTSTELLER. Eigenh. Brief mit Unterschrift. Prag, 20. Oktober [19]15. CHF 30,000-40,000.
    Koller, Mar. 25: EINSTEIN, ALBERT. Zwei eigenhändige Briefe an Ernst Gabor Straus, unterschrieben "A.E" bzw. "A. Einstein". [Princeton], [19]45. und [1950]. CHF 30,000-40,000.
    Koller, Mar. 25: HORTENSE DE BEAUHARNAIS, MUTTER VON NAPOLEON III. Album aus ihrem Besitz mit 69 Aquarellen und Pinselzeichnungen in Sepia oder Grau… CHF 14,000-18,000.
    Koller, Mar. 25: ZOOLOGIE - ORNITHOLOGIE - Seligmann, Johann Michael. Verzameling van uitlandsche en zeldzaame Vogelen. Teile 1-8 (von 9) in 2 Bänden. Mit 421 prächtig altkolorierten Kupfertafeln. CHF 14,000-20,000
    Koller, Mar. 25: BOTANIK - Berlèse, Lorenzo und Johann Jakob Jung. Iconographie du genre camellia... 3 Bände. Mit 300 Farbstichtafeln "a la poupée.” Paris, [1839-]1841-1843. CHF 12,000-18,000.

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