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Rare Book Monthly Articles - June - 2025 Issue

Rare Book Hub: Log in from your phone!

Rare Book Hub: Log in from your phone!

Rare Book Hub is now providing a mobile optimized version that makes it easier to use us from your phone. In some respects it’s easier to understand our complex services on the main site. Here’s what it looks like.   Here is how it works.   Wherever you are in the world, use your phone’s browser and simply type in: Rare Book Hub or rarebookhub. Whether you are a day tripper, or logging in as a paid member, you have plenty to see and do.   Our software will detect your operating system, your version, and screen size. You’ll then see our home page. Near to the top you’ll see Menu. Click...

Man Borrows 100 Books from Library and Burns Them

Man Borrows 100 Books from Library and Burns Them

This may not be the most peaceful and united of times in America, no twenty-first century version of the Era of Good Feelings. Still, a recent occurrence is symbolically more chilling than most. Bo...

Conflicting Currents in the World of Collecting

Recently there have been a bevy of handwringing articles relating to softness in the 20th century arts auctions. Sculptures and paintings have appeared to exhausted their welcome near term. Later P...

Where is the Next Generation of Book Collectors? Dolly Knows. It Starts with Readers.

Where is the Next Generation of Book Collectors? Dolly Knows. It Starts with Readers.

It is the age old question of the book collecting field – where is the new collector? It is at times a rhetorical question, more a statement of fear for the field, that books will be overwhelmed by...

FH: Lincoln's Legacy Delivers

On May 21st, Freeman | Hindman’s converted Lincoln aspirations into a memorable auction that will rank among the top ten in the collectible paper category worldwide by dollar value for 2025.  The s...

Firing of Librarian of Congress Is More Complex Than it Might Appear

Firing of Librarian of Congress Is More Complex Than it Might Appear

On May 8th the Trump administration fired Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, with a terse two line email. It first appeared that this action was just one of a barrage of attacks aimed at ...

The Rose City Book Fair Returns June 14-15

The Rose City Book Fair Returns June 14-15

Come June, it will once again be time for the annual Rose City Book Paper Fair held in the “Rose City,” Portland, Oregon. The annual book fair will once again be held at the DoubleTree at Lloyd Ce...

Basil Hall in America, the Art of Perspective

Basil Hall in America, the Art of Perspective

Basil Hall’s narrative of travels in North America (Edinburgh, 1829) is everything you’d expect from an officer of the British navy (from Scotland, though): a boring display of self-laudatory refle...

Funny Money

Funny Money

Recently I bought an appealing item on eBay that included something unexpected.   What I bought was an executed mortgage gold bond offered to those who were hoping that New Paltz, New York’s elec...

Ohio, Indiana and Michigan Offer Multiple Auction Options

Ohio, Indiana and Michigan Offer Multiple Auction Options

Far from the big name houses of NYC, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan host a lively auction trade. While these Midwestern firms seldom grab the headlines, they do offer reputable representation and a div...

Follow Up – The Library in the Middle of a National Border

Follow Up – The Library in the Middle of a National Border

In April, we wrote about the Haskell Library, a unique symbol of Canadian-American friendship for over a century. It was built right on top of the border, the main entrance being in America but the...

Arrests Made in Theft of Dead Man's Books

Arrests Made in Theft of Dead Man's Books

James Strand was something of a recluse. An elderly man without children, he lived alone in a small house in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. He had a niece and they spoke on occasion, b...

A Census of Almost 1,000 Copies of the First Nine Editions of Hugo Grotius' De Iure Belli ac Pacis has been Published

A Census of Almost 1,000 Copies of the First Nine Editions of Hugo Grotius' De Iure Belli ac Pacis has been Published

As long as there have been societies, there has been some sort of law governing behavior within that society, written or not. Communities, then nations, and also religions, have had their own laws....

Four New Catalogues Have Been Reviewed

Four New Catalogues Have Been Reviewed

This month we review four new bookseller catalogues. Philip Salmon Company has issued their first catalogue, The Interaction of Paper. It offers books where the paper has uncommon features, such a...

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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