Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - September - 2005 Issue

Private Press and Fine Printing from Oak Knoll Books

Private Press 2000-2005 from Oak Knoll Books.

Private Press 2000-2005 from Oak Knoll Books.


Here is a random sample: The Goat Secret, by Bill Griffiths, published in 2000, by the Tern Press. This book recounts the legend of Kaldi, an Abyssinian (now Ethiopia) goat herder who supposedly discovered coffee. As the story goes, Kaldi was tending his flock one day when he noticed his goats became more lively when they ate the berries of a certain plant. He decided to try the magic berries himself, and noted they had a most invigorating effect. Instead of having the sense to take out a patent on his discovery, which would have made his descendants incredibly wealthy, he shared it with the monks at a local monastery, who found that it helped keep them awake during their prayers. They must have thought it a miracle. All of this supposedly happened a thousand years ago, and though it probably never did, it still makes a good story. Priced at $35.

You may find books offered for sale by Oak Knoll Books on their website at www.oakknoll.com. Their telephone number is 302-328-7232.

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    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.
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    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.
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    Sotheby’s, July 17: Album Containing Four Signed Photographs of Albert Einstein, With Eleven Additional Einstein Photographs, From His Journey to Japan Aboard the S.S. Kitano Maru, 1922. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Fred Freeman. Illustration of the Channel Tunnel’s British Portal (Presumably at Folkestone), ca. 1958. $5,000 to $7,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Wolfgang Kurt Hermann Panofsky Group of Awards. Pief Panofsky's 1961 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, National Medal of Science, Enrico Fermi Award, and Others. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Seymour Cray; Cray-3. Manuscript Cray-3 Logbook, 1989-90. — The Only Significant Cray Manuscript to Come to Auction. $20,000 to $30,000.
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    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.

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