Rare Book Monthly Articles - December - 2024 Issue

The Agony and the Ecstasy

The Agony and the Ecstasy

What was once known as book collecting, we now call collectible paper because many forms of paper are silently and seamlessly appearing in catalogues and listings. There’s no fanfare about it anymore because paper always belonged but its increasing importance, measured by frequency and price has our attention.   Ninety percent of old and collectible books occasionally appear in dealer catalogues, at shows, on listing sites and at auction. And because frequency of reappearance at auction is followed and retained, rare and collectible books' rarity are increasingly understood. For Ephemera,...

AI Meets the Book World

AI Meets the Book World

AI is creeping into the book world, and not everyone is happy about it. If there is anyone left who doesn't know what “AI” stands for, it's “artificial intelligence.” AI can not only answer your qu...

Nick Aretakis, ABAA: A Fresh e-List

Nick Aretakis, ABAA: A Fresh e-List

Nick Aretakis, ABAA: A Fresh e-List   Nick Aretakis, who helped the Reese Company after the passing of William Bill Reese, has returned to manage his own firm:  Nick Aretakis – Americana, now bas...

Sotheby’s Posts Ambitious and Diverse December Sale Schedule

Sotheby’s Posts Ambitious and Diverse December Sale Schedule

Sotheby’s global Books and Manuscripts Department has posted a diverse and ambitious sales schedule for the final month of 2024, with material ranging from the fourth through the twenty-first centu...

TikTok for Book Collectors

TikTok for Book Collectors

Where is the new book collector? That's a question many have been asking ever since dealers started noticing the stereotypical, traditional book collectors were aging out. Here is one answer – TikT...

Some Highs and Lows of 2024 Bookselling

Some Highs and Lows of 2024 Bookselling

Published Page: A big bricks and mortar store in a small Texas town Jim Hart and his wife Connye are the owners of the Published Page in Cleburne, Texas. This is a large general interest shop stoc...

Larry McMurtry's Legendary “Booked Up” to be Reborn as a Literary Center in His Honor

Larry McMurtry's Legendary “Booked Up” to be Reborn as a Literary Center in His Honor

Larry McMurtry was one of America's greatest novelists of recent memory. That was an unnecessary preface. Everyone knows that. The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, are a few o...

High Bids Win: Letterpress & Bindery Auction end December 5th, and then 3 more auctions

High Bids Win: Letterpress & Bindery Auction end December 5th, and then 3 more auctions

High Bids Win: Letterpress Bindery Auction ends December 5th, and then 3 more auctions   For most, books start with paper and ink.  But for a special few, they prefer to have the old equipment t...

Giving Big:  Glen and Cathy Miranker Make Two Multi-million Dollar Donations

Giving Big:  Glen and Cathy Miranker Make Two Multi-million Dollar Donations

Noted California bibliophiles and philanthropists Glen and Cathy Miranker recently made two multi-million dollar donations. They gave $3.1 million to endow a full-time curatorial chair for the teac...

The Bouquinistes Displayed!

The Bouquinistes Displayed!

Photographer Alain Lecornu celebrates the “bouquinistes des quais de Seine”, in Paris, France, and their recent “victory” over modernity with a beautiful project—and guess what, it’s a book! Books...

Doyle on 12/6:  Rare Books, Autographs, & Maps +++

Doyle on 12/6: Rare Books, Autographs, & Maps +++

Doyle on 12/6:  Rare Books, Autographs, Maps +++   Doyle’s upcoming auction of collectible paper in many forms on December 6th is fun and easy to parse.  There are 305 lots that can be searched ...

There's a New Book Publisher in Town and It's a Name You Know

There's a New Book Publisher in Town and It's a Name You Know

There is a new book publisher in town but it's someone you know well from its other endeavors. It is one of just three American companies with a market value of over $3 trillion, the other two bein...

Best wishes for the holidays

Best wishes for the holidays

Best wishes for the holidays.   Rare books and collectible paper enjoy a wide following because collectors, institutions, appraisers, dealers and auction houses find pleasure and opportunity in t...

Seven New Catalogues Reviewed

Seven New Catalogues Reviewed

This month we review seven new booksellers' catalogues. Michael D. Heaston Rare Books Manuscripts presents a catalogue of “Wanderings Westward,” as Americans began to settle their more western exp...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Heritage Auctions
    Rare Books Signature Auction
    December 15, 2025
    Heritage, Dec. 15: John Donne. Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.
    Heritage, Dec. 15: Bram Stoker. Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1897.
    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…
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • 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. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    December 9-17, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
    Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.

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