Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Hassall (Joan) A large collection of over 300 original woodblocks of engravings for various books, v.d., with Hassall's engraver's glass water-globe (Qty) - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 9: Eragny Press.- [Bradley (Katherine Harris) & Edith Emma Cooper], "Michael Field." Whym Chow, Flame of Love, one of only 27 copies, inscribed by Bradley, the rarest book from the press, 1914. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum, July 9: [Moore (Thomas Sturge)] [Wood Engravings], 71 wood-engravings printed by David Chambers from the original blocks, the only set on Japanese Hosho paper, from an edition of 5 sets, [1970]. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: La Fontaine (Jean de) Contes et Nouvelles en vers, 2 vol., engraved plates after Eisen, fine early 19th century blue morocco, gilt, by Bradel l'ainé, Amsterdam [Paris], 1762. - Est. £2,000-3,000
Forum, July 9: Erotica.- Prostitution.- Pretty Women of Paris (The); Their Names and Addresses, Qualities and Faults..., [Paris], privately printed at the Press of the Prefecture de Police, 1883. - Est. £3,000-4,000
Forum, July 9: Vale Press.- Ricketts (Charles) & Lucien Pissarro. De la Typographie et de l'Harmonie de la Page Imprimée…, [one of 216 copies], bound in dark blue morocco tooled in gilt, by Sarah T.Prideaux, 1898. - Est. £1,000-1,500
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Martin (John) Illustrations of the Bible, complete set of 20 mezzotints, good impressions, rarely found in early states, [c.1831-1835]. - Est. £1,000-1,500
Forum, July 9: Golden Cockerel Press.- Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ (The), one of 500 copies, Mary Gill's copy, Waltham St. Lawrence, 1931 with a signed proof of engraving on japon numbered 10/10 (2) - Est. £5,000-7,000
Forum, July 9: Boccaccio (Giovanni) The Decameron, 3 vol., vol.1 extra-illustrated by John Buckland Wright with c.150 erotic original drawings in pen & ink and pencil, 1886 [extra-illustrated c.1940]. - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum Auctions The Private Library: Fine Printing & Private Press books, the collection of the late David Chambers July 9, 2026
Forum, July 9: Cox (Morris) Collection of Gogmagog Press Books, 35 vol., rare complete collection of printed books issued by the press, limited editions, most signed by Cox, 1957-83. - Est. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 9: Wynkyn de Worde.- [Terentius Afer (Publius)] [Comedie...], [Paris, Josse Badius: sold in London by Wynkyn de Worde, & others], [15 July 1504]. - Est. £4,000-6,000
Forum, July 9: Mosley (James) Ornamented Types. Twenty-Three Alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée, 2 vol., one of 10 copies for presentation, from an edition of 210, 1992-93. - Est. £1,000-2,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presentation Gold Pocket Watch. Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Presentation Copy of the First Issue of the Lincoln Douglas Debates Signed by Abraham Lincoln in Pencil to a Sangamon County Illinois Republican. Estimate: $150,000 - 250,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: A Senate Resolution Signed in the Tense Days After the Union's Humiliating Defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. Estimate: $80,000 - $120,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Seven Passages to a Flight, an Artists Book with a Story Quilt by Faith Ringgold, the Publisher's Own Copy. Estimate: $80,000 - 120,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: A New Charter for Virginia, A Response to the First Armed Rebellion in the American Colonies. Estimate: $15,000 - 25,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Earliest obtainable printing of the Bill of Rights. Estimate: $8,000 - 12,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Edward Curtis Orotone. Estimate: $7,000 - 9,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Butter or Dessert Plate from FDR's State Dinner Service. Estimate: $3,000 - 5,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: An Early Large-Format Plan of the City of Washington. Estimate: $1,500 - 2,500
Bonhams, June 14-23: Containing the First Map to Name the Hudson River. Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: America's First Major Novelist, a Complete Chapter in Autograph Manuscript by James Fenimore Cooper. Estimate: $15,000 - 20,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: The Only Full-Length Book by Jefferson, with the Justly Famous Map. Estimate: $12,000 - 18,000
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: Houdini's biography, boldly signed. $3,000 to $5,000.
Doyle, June 25: A volume from Abraham Lincoln's library, signed just before heading to Washington for his inauguration. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very early Confederate recruiting manual belonging to the chief commissary in Lee's Army. $600 to $800.
Doyle, June 25: Rare hand-colored lithographs of the life of Napoleon. $20,000 to $30,000.
Doyle, June 25: The "Holster Atlas" of the American Revolution. $5,000 to $8,000.
Doyle, June 25: Jewish ceremonies in fine hand-colored engravings. $7,000 to $10,000.
Doyle, June 25: A very rare work on Turkish military costume. $1,000 to $1,500.
June 25, 2026
Doyle, June 25: The most important illustrated work on the Mexican-American War. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: The finest illustrated book on Afghanistan. $10,000 to $15,000.
Doyle, June 25: Henry Justice Ford St. George rescues the Princess from the horrible Dragon. $2,000 to $3,000.
Doyle, June 25: A rare work of Prussian Army uniforms under Frederick William II, with exquisite hand-colored engravings. $800 to $1,200.
Doyle, June 25: Lenny Bruce typed letter signed to a Village bohemian during his obscenity trials, with a manuscript note and drawing. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: Schiff's scarce Shanghai Sketchbook. $300 to $500.
Doyle, June 25: The first accurate published representation of the American flag. $2,000 to $4,000.
Bonhams, June 14-23: Palm-reading, astrology, and more. Estimate: $2,000 - 3,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Benjamin Franklin. Sammelband of 45 papers on electricity. Estimate: $8,000 - 12,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: The basis for the whole modern electric-power industry. Estimate: $4,000 - 6,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Edgar Allen Poe. Poe on Mesmerism. Estimate: $2,500 - 3,500
Bonhams, June 14-23: Reformation - The Architect of Lutheranism on Church Unity and Dissent. Estimate: $100,000 - 150,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: The Rare 3-Paper Offprint Identifying the Double Helix Structure of DNA, Signed by Crick, Wilkins, Wilson, Stokes and Gosling. Estimate: $40,000 - 60,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Autograph book and Report from the Thirtieth Indian National Congress, featuring the signatures of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Dadabhai Naoroji. Estimate: $6,000 - 8,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: An Illustrated Miniature Hebrew Prayerbook Manuscript. Estimate: $30,000 - 50,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Autograph Working Draft of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Death Voyage. Estimate: $30,000 - 50,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: "Perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published." Estimate: $15,000 - 20,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: Izaak Walton. The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative man's Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing. Estimate: $12,000 - 18,000
Bonhams, June 14-23: A rare product of the Jaquard loom. Estimate: $8,000 - 12,000
Richard Murian recently slipped away at 87. An active Arizona book dealer over much of his life, he was a friendly and reliable source who bought and sold stock and provided help to those who posed complex bibliographical questions.
Richard was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, on September 17, 1937. He lived in a small apartment with his mother, but books were always present. He would go on to earn several degrees, work as a librarian, and in an unusual step for a bookseller, also serve as a minister. Minister isn't the highest paying job, so he sold scholarly books on the side. That b...
Opponents of library censorship lost an important case we have been following the past two years from rural Llano, Texas. A group of citizens petitioned the county commissioners with a list of 17 b...
June 30, 2025. As I write this note the ALA’s (American Library Association) annual fair is wrapping up in Philadelphia. Soon visitors and exhibitors will make their high-speed descent down the es...
It's been a long time since Oscar Wilde has been able to read a book at the British Library. Of course, a major reason is that he is dead, as he has been for over a century. However, there is a rea...
Copies of two of the most important documents in American history brought in record prices at Sotheby's June 26. One was a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln ...
John Shelton Reed (born 1942) is an American sociologist and essayist, author or editor of 23 books, most of them dealing with contemporary America. And at 82 he still has some projects to keep him...
Coming soon is one of the biggest and most successful book sales in the entire country. It's time for the annual C.H. Booth Library Sale. This is the one the Boston Globe called “one of the largest...
2025 Detroit Book Fair
Detroit Festival of Books, Sunday, July 20th, has expanded to over 250 book vendors from 15 different states and Canada. Matching its earlier attendance records, the upcomi...
Most people know there is no standard path to becoming a bookseller. Some people, like this writer, are born into it; others work at a shop or library or buy too many books, or sell for a while on ...
In the first court ruling of the legality of using copyrighted books to create answers for chatbots such as ChatGPT, the bots have won and the authors lost. The chatbots need to have access to huge...
A large source of additional information for AI (artificial intelligence) chatbox programs, like ChatGPT or Microsoft's Llama, has been opened. Those are the online search programs that answer just...
Would you like to live in a library? What could be more of a dream for the avid book-reader! Well, there is one for sale now, and it is one of classic construction, no less. It is a Carnegie Librar...
The World's oldest auction house has undertaken a major expansion by acquiring one of its closest competitors in terms of age. Stockholms Auctionsverk has acquired Uppsala Auctionskammare. Both of ...
Princess Lamballe was Queen Marie-Antoinette’s close friend, who was put to death during the Révolution. After reading about her terrible execution, I decided to follow her bouncing severed head fr...
This list shows 22 auction houses doing business in five Northeastern states whose records are archived by RareBookHub.com It is not comprehensive, but as a survey of New England auction houses it...
This month we review four new dealer catalogues. The William Reese Company offers new acquisitions in Americana. David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books also has a new selection of material in the f...
SD Auctions, June 24: PAULUS OROSIUS + Pseudo SENACA: «Historiae adversus paganos...», 1491. CIRCULAR WORLD MAP, SHIRLEY NUMBER 15.
SD Auctions, June 24: OLAUS MAGNUS: «Historia Delle Genti Et Della Natura [...].», 1565.
Scandinavian Art & Rare Book Auctions Bøker & Manuskripter Fine Books & Manuscripts June 24, 2026
SD Auctions, June 24: AXEL HEIBERG: Pengekiste, 17-1800-tall.
SD Auctions, June 24: HENRIK IBSEN: Teaterplakater 2 stk. «FRU INGER TIL ØSTRÅT» 1895-1896.
SD Auctions, June 24: HENRIK WERGELAND: Stort manuskript, signert + dedikasjonseksemplar, 1845.
Freeman’s, June 30. Thomas Jefferson’s “Birth of the New Nation” letter, carried to Paris with the Treaty of Peace, by a Jewish patriot. $100,000-200,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. “The rockets’ red glare.” A British midshipman’s log recording the bombardment of Fort McHenry. $60,000-80,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. The Critical Promotion of a Naval Hero, Oliver Hazard Perry Commission signed by James Madison, 1812. $40,000-60,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. Born in the USA: First Day of Printing in the United States, July 4, 1776. $15,000-25,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. One of the Earliest Printed Announcements of American Independence, in the Exceedingly Rare Original Wrappers, 1776. $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. "The Two Big Guns of the N.Y. Yanks": A Striking Type 1 Press Photograph of Lou Gehrig's Hands. $8,000-12,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. A Unique Contemporary Manuscript Account of Joseph Smith's Final Words to His Followers, the Day Before his Violent Death. $8,000-12,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. The State of Minnesota Officially Certifies the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution Of the United States. $8,000-12,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. Extraordinarily Large Manuscript Petition Signed by a Who's Who of Colonial New York to Queen Anne from the Colony of New York. $8,000-12,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. Mickey Mantle's First Cover: The Earliest Front-Page Newspaper Image of Mickey Mantle, "Something Good from Joplin". $8,000-12,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. A Call to Arms in the Months Following the Declaration of Independence: An Early Continental Army Recruitment Poster. $6,000-9,000.
Freeman’s, June 30. Samuel Jones, the Statesman Behind the Newly Discovered "Jones Declaration": His Annotated Set Used in His Working Law Library. $6,000-9,000.
Sotheby’s Fine Books & Manuscripts June 24-25
Sotheby’s, June 25: Keats, John. The most significant collection of Keats’s love letters to come to market since 1885. $1,500,000 to $2,500,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: Chassériau, Benoît. The “Expedicion secreta” of the Free State of Cartagena de Indias against the forts of Portobelo (Panama). $50,000 to $70,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: (Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay). "One of the new nation's most important contributions to the theory of government”. $150,000 to $180,000.
Sotheby’s, June 24: Benjamin Franklin. "the Day of the Declaration of Independence is everywhere annually celebrated". $80,000 to $120,000.
Sotheby’s, June 24: (Johann Conrad Beissel). A Sammelband of two of Benjamin Franklin's rarest imprints. $70,000 to $100,000.
Sotheby’s, June 25: [Pernambuco]. First printed work in favor of Brazilian Independence. $150,000 to $200,000.