• Sotheby’s
    New York Book Week
    12-26 June
    Sotheby’s, June 25: Theocritus. Theocriti Eclogae triginta, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, February 1495/1496. 220,000 - 280,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, 1925. 40,000 - 60,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Printed ca. 1381-1832. 400,000 - 600,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Lincoln, Abraham. Thirteenth Amendment, signed by Abraham Lincoln. 8,000,000 - 12,000,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, June 26: Galieli, Galileo. First Edition of the Foundation of Modern Astronomy, 1610. 300,000 - 400,000 USD
  • Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE / LANDINO, CRISTOFORO. Comento di Christophoro Landino Fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino, 1481. €40,000 to €50,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. La Commedia [Commento di Christophorus Landinus]. Aggiunta: Marsilius Ficinus, Ad Dantem gratulatio [in latino e Italiano], 1487. €40,000 to €60,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: ALIGHIERI, DANTE. Il Convivio, 1490. €20,000 to €25,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: BANDELLO, MATTEO. La prima [-quarta] parte de le nouelle del Bandello, 1554. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LEGATURA – PLUTARCO. Le vies des hommes illustres, grecs et romaines translates, 1567. €10,000 to €12,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: TOLOMEO, CLAUDIO. Ptolemeo La Geografia di Claudio Ptolemeo Alessandrino, Con alcuni comenti…, 1548. €4,000 to €6,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: FESTE - COPPOLA, GIOVANNI CARLO. Le nozze degli Dei, favola [...] rappresentata in musica in Firenze…, 1637. €6,000 to €8,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: SPINOZA, BARUCH. Opera posthuma, 1677. €8,000 to €12,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER. Borus Godunov, 1831. €30,000 to €50,000.
    Finarte
    Books, Autographs & Prints
    June 24 & 25, 2025
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - LECUIRE, PIERRE. Ballets-minute, 1954. €35,000 to €40,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MAJAKOVSKIJ, VLADIMIR / LISSITZKY, LAZAR MARKOVICH. Dlia Golosa, 1923. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Finarte, June 24-25: LIBRO D'ARTISTA - MATISSE, HENRI / MONTHERLANT, HENRY DE. Pasiphaé. Chant de Minos., 1944. €22,000 to €24,000.
  • Bonhams, June 16-25: 15th-CENTURY TREATISE ON SYPHILIS. GRÜNPECK. 1496. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF BENIVIENI'S TREATISE ON PATHOLOGY. 1507. $12,000 - $18,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: FRACASTORO. Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus. 1530. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE FIRST PUBLISHED WORK ON SKIN DISEASES. MERCURIALIS. De morbis cutaneis... 1572. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: BIDLOO. Anatomia humani corporis... 1685. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: THE NORMAN COPY OF DOUGLASS'S EARLY AMERICAN WORK ON INNOCULATION AND SMALLPOX. 1722. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: LIND'S FIRST TREATISE ON SCURVY. 1753. $15,000 - $20,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: RARE JENNER SIGNED CIRCULAR ON VACCINATION. 1821. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: MOST BEAUTIFUL OF MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. BRIGHT. Reports of Medical Cases... 1827-1831. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE PRESENTATION COPY TO HER MOTHER. 1860. $6,000 - $8,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: LORENZO TRAVER'S MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL OF BURNSIDE'S NORTH CAROLINA EXPEDITION. TRAVER, Lorenzo. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, June 16-25: ONE OF THE EARLIEST PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKS ON DERMATOLOGY. HARDY. Clinique Photographique... 1868. $3,000 - $5,000
  • Bonhams, June 16-24: KELMSCOTT PRESS. RUSKIN. The Nature of Gothic. 1892. $1,500 - $2,500
    Bonhams, June 16-24: ASHENDENE PRESS. The Wisdom of Jesus. 1932. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: CHARLOTTE BRONTE WRITES AS GOVERNESS. Autograph Letter Signed, 1851. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS. BRONTE, Emily. New York, 1848. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: IAN FLEMING ASSOCIATION COPY. You Only Live Twice. London, 1964. $7,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: DELUXE EDITION WITH ORIGINAL PAINTING. BUKOWSKI, Charles. War All the Time. 1984. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN'S MOST POWERFUL STATEMENT ON THE ATOMIC BOMB. Original Typed Manuscript Signed, "On My Participation in the Atom Bomb Project," 1953. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN ON SCIENCE, WAR AND MORALITY. Autograph Letter Signed, 1949. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. WASHINGTON, George. Engraved document signed, 1786. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: AN EARLY CHINESE-MADE 34-STAR U.S. CONSULAR FLAG. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF LINCOLN WITH HIS SON TAD. 1864. $60,000 - $90,000
    Bonhams, June 16-24: MALCOLM X WRITES FROM KENYA. Postcard signed, 1964. $4,000 - $6,000

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - December - 2017 Issue

Radical Causes from Lorne Bair Rare Books

Lorne Bair's Catalog 28.

Lorne Bair's Catalog 28.

Lorne Bair Rare Books has issued their Catalog 28. Bair specializes in radical literature, mostly from the left. Minority and workers' rights, economic justice, and similar causes dominate the material. This catalogue has been divided into four sections: African American History, Literature & Culture; Radical, Social & Proletarian Literature; Social Movements & Radical Thought; and Graphics, Art & Photography. These are a few of the items offered.

 

The 1930s was a high period for radical causes. Socialists, Communists, and unions found more receptive audiences, the result of the terrible poverty caused by the Great Depression. This book is not from one of the more radical movements, but did more than almost any other such writing to reach the mainstream with its portrayal of economic injustice and poverty experienced by so many ordinary Americans. It is a tale of a family of "Okies," Oklahomans forced from their farms by the Dust Bowl, seeking meager survival in the California farm fields. This book is, of course, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. The travails of the Joad family are well-known. Those who didn't read the book almost surely saw the movie, Henry Fonda playing the lead. The book was published in 1939, and this copy is a first edition, first printing, a fine copy with comparable dust jacket, not even price clipped. It is a good as they come. Item 97. Priced at $7,500.

 

Item 182 consists of a carte-de-viste captioned Mrs. Tennie C. Claflin, Broker, along with an autographed card of Miss Claflin (despite the "Mrs" in the carte-de-viste, she was unmarried). Tennie C. was a radical feminist, of sorts, though certainly not in the image of Susan B. Anthony. She wrote a book promoting women's rights, along with such things as free love, which probably didn't endear her to the movement. She and her sister, Virginia Woodhull, opened the first Wall Street brokerage run by women, and Ms. Woodhull was the first woman to run for President (she lost decisively, to say the least, to Ulysses Grant in 1872). On the other hand, the Claflin sisters were also known as scam artists. Among Tennie's other professions was giving spiritual readings, and who better to have intrigued by your readings, and perhaps other things (Tennie C. was quite attractive), than the aged Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the world's richest man? Well into his 70s, the Commodore provided the financial backing for the sisters' brokerage firm. When he died, Vanderbilt's son gave the sisters a healthy sum of money to move to England. Tennie C. hooked up with another wealthy elderly gentleman (though not on the Vanderbilt level) and became a Viscountess. $600.

 

Less removed in time is the Vietnam War era. The nation became sharply divided over a war that the government waged, and many, particularly older people, supported. On the opposite side, others, including a large portion of younger people, those who would be asked, and then forced, to go to war, sharply dissented. They at best saw the Vietnam War as serving no purpose, if not being an evil attempt by America to impose its will on others through violent force. Item 228 is an example of the latter point of view, a circa 1967 poster. It throws back an iconic moment in American history at America. It depicts a Vietnamese person riding a horse past a home in the dead of night, only the moon lighting the way, another person watching and listening from the door. Playing on Paul Revere's midnight ride, the caption states, The Americans Are Coming. $300.

 

Next we have a very bizarre comic book from Ovid P. Adams. Published in 1970, the title is The Adventures of Black Eldridge the Panther. It is a fictionalized tale of the life of Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. On the cover, Cleaver is depicted with the severed head of a white man in his hand (in a sense appropriate for a man named "cleaver"). In the story, Cleaver is exiled in Algeria, which was accurate. After being involved in a shoot-out with police, Cleaver fled first to Cuba and then Algeria. While there, he broke with other Panthers who he felt had become too accommodating with whites. However, in this story, Cleaver covertly returns to the U.S. after hearing of a Black artist killed by a White racist in Utah. In revenge, he decapitates the leader of the conservative Mormon Church. There is great irony in this story that Adams could not have imagined in 1970. When he left Algeria, Cleaver went to France, where he became a born-again Christian and began manufacturing pants meant to make men look more manly. When he returned to America, he made his peace with the law and moved farther and farther to the right. He joined up with Sun Myung Moon's conservative Unification Church, and then, in the ultimate irony with this tale, became a Mormon. Continuing to move right, he became a conservative Republican, unsuccessfully seeking the party's nomination for senate in California. Cleaver died in 1998. Item 1. $850.

 

Item 98 is a compilation of early writings by H. G. Wells with a brief, but most intriguing, inscription. Wells grew up in a struggling family. His father, Joseph Wells, was not a successful man. A modest inheritance enabled him to open a shop, but it was no more successful than his other endeavors. Joseph set his son up with some apprenticeships. They did not work out. The result was Wells was a disappointment to his father, who was not much impressed by his son's interest in books and learning. In the early 1890s, Wells began writing short stories and essays for magazines, many of them humorous. He was a prolific writer, with some of these later culled to create this volume entitled Certain Personal Matters, dated 1898 (actually 1897). They were popular, and in 1895, he published his first novel, The Time Machine. While he had not yet reached his peak of recognition at this point, Wells was already reasonably successful and supporting his parents. This copy of Personal Matters has been inscribed by Wells to his father, with the brief words, "from his unworthy son." While it might be just a case of extreme self-effacement, it may also be a bit of a dig, as his father had made him feel unworthy, but by this time, Wells was far more successful than his father ever had been. $4,500.

 

Lorne Bair Rare Books may be reached at 540-665-0855 or info@lornebair.com. Their website is www.lornebair.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Case Antiques
    Two-Day Summer Auction
    July 12 & 13, 2025
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Winston Link Signed Photograph, Hotshot Eastbound, Iager, West Virginia, July 1957. $3,400 to $3,800.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Alexander Hamilton ALS, Whiskey Rebellion. $2,800 to $3,200.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Civil War Canteen and Letters, Thomas Tabb Jr. CSA. $1,800 to $2,200.
    Case Antiques
    Two-Day Summer Auction
    July 12 & 13, 2025
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Archive of Capt. William Tabb of MS, CSA, Killed Atlanta. $1,000 to $1,400.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Rudyard Kipling Collection, 29 Volumes, First Editions; Zaehnsdorf Bindings. $1,000 to $1,200.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Artist Andrew Wyeth & Family Signed Letters, Cards. $1,000 to $1,200.
    Case Antiques
    Two-Day Summer Auction
    July 12 & 13, 2025
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Augusta Resolves Silk Broadside, Revolutionary War RelateD. $800 to $1,000.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: 1894 Map of Nashville. $800 to $900.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: CSA Navy Appointment, Semmes and Mallory plus Photo of Lt. Armstrong. $600 to $800.
    Case Antiques
    Two-Day Summer Auction
    July 12 & 13, 2025
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Slave Colonies of Great Britain, 1825, Macaulay, First Edition, plus Debate on Abolition, 1792. $600 to $800.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Signed Photo of 3 Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Carter. $600 to $800.
    Case Antiques, July 12-13: Slave Ledger, Merrill Plantations, Natchez, MS & Concordia, LA. $1,000 to $1,200.
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