Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - May - 2011 Issue

Uncommon Books and Unusual Manuscripts from Thomas Cullen

Manuscripts and books from Thomas Cullen.

Manuscripts and books from Thomas Cullen.

Thomas Cullen, Rockland Bookman has issued Catalog #49 - Manuscripts & Books. Cullen offers a collection of unusual items, a mix of uncommon books and one-of-a-kind manuscripts, mostly from the 19th century.  The manuscripts frequently cover day-to-day events in the lives of people who lived lives that were both simpler, yet more difficult than those we live today. Nothing was easy by today's standards. Among the personal items offered are diaries, business ledgers, even personal labor contracts for children, politely called "apprenticeships." You would not have wanted to be the apprentice in those days. Here are a few items from this latest Cullen catalogue.

 

Item 61 is a manuscript daybook from John Sanborn, a cobbler and general handyman from Poplin (renamed Fremont in 1856), New Hampshire. It runs from 1808-1837. The book recounts his activities as a shoemaker, but perhaps the most interesting part is a four-page section describing the year without a summer, or what was then known as "the year eighteen hundred and froze to death." That year culminated a series of volcanic explosions in far-off Indonesia, including the worst in recorded history in 1815. The ash spread around the world, dimming the sun. Some areas were affected more than others, and New England and Maritime Canada were particularly hard hit. New Hampshire already has cold winters, and cool nights in summer. Cool midsummer nights turned to frosts and even summertime snow that year. Crops were destroyed, leading to food shortages, extraordinarily high prices, and famine. Sanborn notes that July was "cold and backward," and something appeared to be covering the sun. That something was the volcanic ash. On the positive, the year featured some of the most dramatic sunsets ever seen, but that was "cold comfort" for farmers with failed crops and hungry people. Priced at $800.

 

Here is a series of daybooks from a family of carpenters that record the careers of a father and son, along with some other members of the family. They start in 1829 and run to 1876. The father was James Preston, born in Connecticut but who settled in Claridon, Ohio, where his account begins. James Preston appears to be a fairly strait-laced pillar of his community. He writes of attending church meetings, singing groups, and funerals. He makes all kinds of furniture and home accessories, such as cupboards and stairs. His entries run through 1860. Meanwhile, his son Reuben begins his daybooks in 1858. Reuben moves to Austin, and then on to nearby Merrelltown, Texas. Reuben's interests are less in going to church meetings, and more like "knocking about town among the sisters and to the grog shops." In 1865, "I celebrated my birth day by getting drunk at Sam Bloomers Still House." Item 76. $1,800.

 

Item 13 is a broadside order from the President providing a humanitarian exception to U.S. supported privateering during the War of 1812. The U.S. did not have a navy capable of providing serious competition to the British at that time, so the government authorized privateers to harass British shipping. However, President Madison issued these Additional Instructions to the Public and Private Vessels of the United States are not to interrupt any British unarmed vessels bound to Sable Island, and laden with supplies for the humane establishment at that place. Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, provided a rescue point for shipwrecks in the area. Scouts regularly patrolled the beaches for survivors of Atlantic shipwrecks, who often made their way to this island. Those survivors were provided food, shelter, and medical help until such time as the occasional vessel headed for that island could take them back to civilization. $1,250.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Buzz Aldrin's FLOWN Apollo 11 Crew-Signed NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Cover. $15,000 to $20,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Lunar Surface Flown Mission Emblem Presented to Tom Stafford by John Young. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Extensive Chronology of Spacecraft From Apollo to Skylab, Signed by a Member of Every Crewed Apollo Flight and the Commanders of Each Skylab Mission. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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