• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - April - 2012 Issue

More of the Unusual from Garrett Scott, Bookseller

Dr. Smith's doctor and medicine-free healing graces Garrett Scott's catalogue.

Garrett Scott, Bookseller, has issued his Catalogue 37 (Miscellaneous acquisitions). For those familiar with Scott's catalogues, this one needs no introduction. It is filled with the eccentric musings (some might say insane) of various oddballs who somehow managed to gain access to a printing press. Other works are compendiums of shady merchandising, quack medicine being a specialty. Religious theories abound, often unconventional. And, for balance, there are some rational, reasonable tracts among the lot. Scott's catalogues are always entertaining, and instructive for those who wonder why we still believe the malarkey promoted today by advertisers and politicians. Gullibility is, obviously, a part of human nature. Here are some of these latest acquisitions.

Item 106 contains some theological teachings for children that many people might find a bit unusual. The pamphlet is Lessons for Children of the New Church, by Mrs. Thomazine Wilkins, published in 1837. She talks about some of our planetary neighbors. On Jupiter, she instructs, people “were inexpressibly sweet, and their countenances always smiling. They have a peculiar way of walking. They bend forward, and spread out their hands, almost like persons swimming...” Perhaps that would be necessary to navigate a gas planet, but still, how could she know this? The explanation is that this was a Swedenborgian Sunday school, and among Emanuel Swedenborg's visions was that of life on other planets. Swedenborg believed God would not make planets other than to house life, ergo, there must be life on all of them (and their moons too). Somehow he managed to communicate with these beings. Priced at $125.

Item 29 is an advertising circular for Newton's Earth Cabinet, a product of the Earth-Closet Company. Today we would call such a device a composting toilet, and it would appeal to those sufficiently devoted to the environment to give up water-based flush toilets (I am not one sufficiently dedicated). Of course, in 1871, most people didn't have flush toilets, so this was probably an advance. When the lid was closed, this device would drop the proper amount of soil to cover the waste. The circular contains the appropriate testimonials, such as this from Dr. W. H. Van Buren: “I think the mode in which a civilization disposes of its excrements is even a better test of its civilization than the condition of its lunatic asylums.” I don't know whether to agree or disagree with the doctor. Comparing the disposal of excrement to lunatic asylums as standards of civilization feels like comparing oranges to apples. How do you choose between them? $50.

If you are wondering about that circular on the cover of this catalogue, and the promise of No Medicine No Doctor Bills (who wouldn't like that?), it is a prospectus for a book by Dr. D.J. Smith. Scott describes his book, perhaps somewhat ungenerously, as “a cobbled together volume of quackery.” Dr. Smith promised drugless healing and his patented Eye Cup (to restore sight), all part of some occult forces of nature explained by the mesmeric healer. The book he was pushing was titled Instructions in Mental and Vital Magnetism Combined, and the doctor notes the first edition sold 250,000 copies. Let's hope the rest of his book was more accurate than that claim. Item 89. $150.

This next item is a circa 1872 broadside from Roswell Marsh, who seems simply naïve, rather than crazy. The heading is HempCannabisSativa. Marsh promotes the production of cannabis, noting, “On strong uplands it will produce from 1000 to 1200 pounds to the acre.” Let's see... how much is that worth? On overflowed river bottoms, it might produce a ton per acre. Mr. Marsh was not a Californian promoting medical marijuana. This was, after all, 1872. He was an Ohioan and he apparently wasn't even aware of this alternate use for hemp. He was simply thinking of its use for cordage for the navy. Item 67. $100.

Item 81 is a single leaf presentation by Paul Pawlowski with the provocative caption title, Polyandry is the Answer. Well... doesn't that depend on what the question is? Maybe I don't want to know what the question is if the answer is “polyandry.” Polyandry is where one woman is married to multiple men, sort of the inverse of the standard form of polygamy as practiced by such gentleman as Warren Jeffs. It appears that Pawlowski's reason for men sharing a single wife was so there wouldn't be so many of those annoying women around. He must not have liked them very much. He promotes female infanticide while observing, “Men were free and happy when they were solving their problems by killing off 9 out of 10 women.” Pawlowski proposes buying a house with around seven men who would find “Mrs. Right” to bear them a child or two each, perhaps ten in all. If you are thinking, these people were totally crazy back in the 19th century, this item comes from around 1971. And, Mr. Pawlowski's career with radical and anti-Semitic groups a few years later suggests that he was not joking. Hopefully, he never found a woman to agree to his conditions. $100.

Here is another unusual marriage arrangement explained, though thankfully not one with such violent overtones: Beyond Marriage (published 1914). Author John Veiby, of South Bend, Indiana (home of Notre Dame University, no less) promotes something known as “geometrical marriage.” I don't entirely understand it, but it sounds something like very open marriage, constantly changing partners (or spouses) for brief interludes. The issue for achieving this, to Veiby, is “a problem for architects.” One needs to build the appropriate living arrangements. What he recommends is communal homes, suitable for 50 to 500 people, with windowless “nuptial chambers.” As I understand this, and I'm struggling, a couple would visit one of these chambers for a brief marriage. Privacy being paramount, no one else would know they were getting married. These chambers would have combination locks on the doors, and, again to be discreet, entering one would be described only as “receiving the combination,” rather than holy matrimony. One would receive the combination from the Vestal, or Madame (okay, that latter term is my wording, not Veiby's). I am not aware of any of these residences ever being built, but a very similar type of structure would soon follow. They're called “motels.” Item 95. $225.

Garrett Scott, Bookseller may be reached at 734-741-8605 or garrett@bibliophagist.com. The website is www.bibliophagist.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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