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Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800 -
Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Fleming (Ian). Dr. No, 1958; You Only Live Twice, 1964, 1st editions, presentation copies. £20,000-30,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Doyle (Arthur Conan). The Sign of Four, 1st edition, 1890. £5,000-8,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Huxley (Aldous). Brave New World, 1st edition, London: Chatto & Windus, 1932. £3,000-5,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Stenbock (Eric Stanislaus). The Shadow of Death, 1st edition, 1893. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Tolkien (J. R. R.). The Lord of the Rings, 1st one volume edition, signed, 1968. £3,000-5,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Orwell (George). Animal Farm, 1st edition, London: Secker & Warburg, 1945. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Cunard (Nancy, editor). Negro, Anthology made by Nancy Cunard, 1st edition, 1934. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Table Game. [The Little Artist Magic Painter, Austria], circa 1775. £1,000-1,500Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Kirnig (Paul, 1891-1955). Austria, Vienna: Christophe Reisser's Söhne, c. 1930. £700-1,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
December 13/14
Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Modern First Editions & Illustrated BooksDominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: A collection of letters including from T. S. Eliot, Siegfried Sassoon, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley et al, from the Lady Ottoline Morrell collection. £700-1,000.Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: The Gentleman's Magazine, or Monthly Intelligencer. 175 volumes, 1731-1844. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, Dec. 13/14: Mont Blanc peepshow. Mr Albert Smith's Ascent of Mont Blanc in Miniature, 1854. £1,500-2,000 -
Bonhams: FREDERICK DOUGLASS RETURNS TO AMERICA A FREE MAN. Sold for $353,175.Bonhams: TORTILLA FLAT INSCRIBED TO STEINBECK'S LITTLE SISTER, MARY. Sold for $57,600.Bonhams: A FRAGMENT OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF OF MICE AND MEN, EATEN BY THE DOG. Sold for $12,800.Bonhams: KEPLER INVESTIGATES PLANETARY MOTION. Sold for $1,008,375.Bonhams: AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT DRAFT LEAF FROM DARWIN'S DESCENT OF MAN, SIGNED BY DARWIN AT THE FOOT. Sold for $239,775.Bonhams: AUDOBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. THE BIRDS OF AMERICA. Sold for $32,000.Bonhams: FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (1706-1790). AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED. Sold for $38,175.Bonhams: MILNE, A.A. (1882-1956). BOXED SET OF 4 CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Sold for $20,480. -
Sotheby’s
Important Modern Literature from the Library of an American Filmmaker
8 December 2023Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: Kerouac, Jack. Typescript scroll of The Dharma Bums. Typed by Kerouac in Orlando, Florida, 1957, published by Viking in 1958. 300,000 - 500,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. The autograph manuscript of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 300,000 - 500,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Miller, Henry. Typescript of The Last Book, a working title for Tropic of Cancer, written circa 1931–1932. 100,000 - 150,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with a lengthy inscription to Joe Goode. 40,000 - 60,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Hemingway, Ernest. in our time, first edition of Hemingway’s second book. 30,000 - 50,000 USD
Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2005 Issue
500 Years of Books from Helen Kahn Rare Books
Five Hundred Years of Books from Helen Kahn
By Michael Stillman
Helen R. Kahn Rare Books is offering a new catalogue of "Five Hundred Years of Books." Actually, that's a bit of an understatement since some go back more than five centuries, but we prefer understatement to hyperbole any day. Naturally, you can expect to find a variety of themes when you have books published in six different centuries all together. That you will find in this latest catalogue, including at least a few items that will undoubtedly be of interest to you. These are some samples.
Here's an example of one of those books that is more than five hundred years old. It is Aurelii Augustini de Ciuitate Dei, written by St. Augustine. Old as it is, it is not contemporary with St. Augustine, who died a millennium before the press was invented. Still, it is almost as old as printed material gets, having been published within a quarter century of Gutenberg's Bible. Augustine wrote "The City of God" from 413-427. It begins with descriptions of the tragedies that have befallen Rome and works its way to a description of two cities, one of earth, one of God. Both are on earth, and neither is a literal city, but rather communities of people, the City of God being of those people who will merit salvation. This edition was published by Mathias Moravus in Naples in 1477. Moravus did most of his printing in Naples where he operated from 1475 until 1491 and is considered one of the best printers of the fifteenth century. Item 6. $14,000.
Fast forward a millennium and a half from Augustine's time and you find Darwin. Item 29 is a first edition, first issue of his The Descent of Man...from 1871. This edition marked Darwin's first printed use of the word "evolution." The concept caused great controversy in its time, and in some places, still does today. $6,250.
So what would St. Augustine and Charles Darwin have said to each other had they met? Perhaps Darwin might have noted how well Augustine looked for someone 1,500 years old, but other than that, who knows? Not even George Lyttelton in his Dialogues of the Dead attempts to answer that question. However, he does present some theoretical conversations between other equally unlikely suspects. Fernando Cortez speaks with William Penn, Mercury speaks to a "North-American Savage" (you can guess who the "savages" were in this Englishman's view), Alexander the Great converses with Charles XII of Sweden, and Plutarch speaks (negotiates?) with a "modern bookseller." Author Lyttelton was a learned man and former Member of Parliament, but Kahn cautions, "he was well-liked and wrote fairly prolifically but not very creatively." However, he was quite popular in his time, three editions being published in its first year of 1760 and several in later years. This one is a second edition. Item 64. $400.
