Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - December - 2002 Issue

The Grolier Club Collects by Abby Tallmer

Collector: Kenneth W. Rendell

Collector: Kenneth W. Rendell

Carol Ann Fitzgerald on James Branch Cabell and Alfred Jackson Hanna’s The St. Johns: A Parade of Diversities:

This is the twenty-fourth volume in the “Rivers of America” series. The series was planned and started by Constance Lindsay Skinner (1877-1939) and numbers sixty-five titles altogether…. My collection of the “Rivers of America” series began with this book, a casual purchase at a book fair in 1986, the first in a collection that now numbers more than 400 volumes, including first printings, special commemorative editions, signed or inscribed copies and reprints…..

I continue to collect Series Americana, such as “American Folkways,” “The American Lake Series,” and the “Seaport Series,” and I am now at work on a descriptive bibliography of about fifteen such series, beginning with those published in the 1940s.

John H. Keck on Jay Gould’s “Survey Map of Part of Delaware County, New York”:

Jay Gould, one of America’s greatest financiers, was born in Roxbury, New York. After secondary schooling in Albany, he was employed in Roxbury at his father’s hardware store. There he learned surveying. He began his professional work in 1852 (at the age of sixteen) with the survey and mapping of Ulster County, New York. This was followed in 1853-1856 with Albany, Delaware, and Sullivan counties…. In 1984, I visited Lyndhurst, Gould’s mansion on the Hudson River near Tarrytown, New York. I was fascinated with the home and became very interested in Gould. Over the years, I have sought rare and interesting Gould material at auctions and from dealers. This hand-drawn and colored survey map was prepared by Jay Gould in February 1856, and bears his oval, embossed seal. It is interesting to note his close attention to detail and form at the early age of nineteen….

Kenneth W. Rendell on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense…:

The publication of Common Sense in 1776 had an immediate riveting effect on patriots in America who were ready to heed its message. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Samuel Adams were all suspected of being the anonymous author. Paine, after bitter quarrels with his first printer, let a number of others reprint his pamphlet in 1776. Richard Gimbel, in his bibliography, writes “It swept the country like a prairie fire and Paine poured more fuel on the flames by giving authority to other printers to publish it.” As a direct result of overwhelming distribution, the Declaration of Independence was unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.

I will never forget the day in 1953 when I opened my fourth-grade history book, my first, and saw a picture of Common Sense that “was dropped in the streets of Boston in 1776, (explaining its water stain).

Rare Book Monthly

Heritage Auctions
Rare Books Signature Auction
December 15, 2025

Heritage, Dec. 15: John Donne. Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.

Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.

Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.

Heritage, Dec. 15: Bram Stoker. Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1897.

Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
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Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("Martinus Luther") to His Friend the Theologian Gerhard Wiskamp ("Gerardo Xantho Lampadario"). $100,000 - $150,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.

Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s
Book Week
December 9-17, 2025

Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.

Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.

Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.

Sotheby’s
Book Week
December 9-17, 2025

Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.

Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.

Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.

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