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Sotheby’s
Fine Books and Manuscripts
8 December 2023Sotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane] — Isaac D'Israeli. Jane Austen's copy of Curiosities of Literature. 100,000 - 150,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition in boards of the author's debut novel. 70,000 - 100,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Brontë, Charlotte. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me..." 100,000 - 150,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Eliot, George. The author's magnum opus. 25,000 - 35,000 USDSotheby’s, Dec. 8: Whitman, Walt. Manuscript written upon the Death of Lincoln, 1865. 60,000 - 80,000 USD -
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 -
Swann
Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
December 7, 2023Swann, Dec. 7: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, A New Map of Texas, Oregon and California with the Regions Adjoining, Philadelphia, 1846. $3,500 to $5,000.Swann, Dec. 7: 17th–19th-century case maps of various locations. $1,500 to $2,000.Swann, Dec. 7: Andreas Cellarius, Haemisphaerium Stellatum Boreale Cum Subiecto Haemisphaerio Terrestri, celestial chart, Amsterdam, 1708. $2,500 to $3,500.Swann
Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
December 7, 2023Swann, Dec. 7: Vincenzo Coronelli, Set of engraved gores for Coronelli’s monumental 42-inch terrestrial globe, Venice, circa 1688–97. $18,000 to $22,000.Swann, Dec. 7: Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, group of four navigational charts, Antwerp, 1580s. $2,000 to $3,000.Swann, Dec. 7: Thomas Bros, Block Book of Berkeley, Oakland, 1920s. $800 to $1,200.Swann
Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
December 7, 2023Swann, Dec. 7: John Nieuhoff & John Ogilby, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, map of China, plan of Canton, London, 1673. $1,200 to $1,800.Swann, Dec. 7: Frederick Sander, Reichenbachia, St. Albans, 1888-1894. $5,000 to $7,000.Swann, Dec. 7: Two early illustrated works on horsemanship and breeding, Nuremberg, early 18th century. $700 to $800.Swann
Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
December 7, 2023Swann, Dec. 7: John Gould, A Monograph of the Ramphastidae, or Family of Toucans. Supplement to the First Edition, London, 1834; 1855. $40,000 to $60,000.Swann, Dec. 7: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World, London, 1808–14. $1,500 to $2,500.Swann, Dec. 7: Oakley Hoopes Bailey, Hackensack, New Jersey, Boston, 1896. $800 to $1,200. -
CHRISTIE’S
Valuable Books and Manuscripts
London auction
13 December
Find out moreChristie’s, Explore now
TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000Christie’s, Explore now
VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000Christie’s, Explore now
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000Christie’s, Explore now
A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000Christie’s, Explore now
AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
C.1311. £100,000–150,000
Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - March - 2007 Issue
More Exceptional Works from Bauman Rare Books
The first catalogue for 2007 from Bauman Rare Books.
By Michael Stillman
Bauman Rare Books, of Philadelphia and New York, has issued a new collection of exceptional material. As we have come to expect, Bauman offers a variety of high-end material, ranging from literature, science, travels, Americana, poetry, art, sports, and religion, to various signed manuscripts, from Revolutionary War soldiers to John F. Kennedy. Bauman's catalogues befit the quality of the works they offer -- striking publications themselves, filled with photographs and thorough descriptions of the items presented. Here are a few samples from the January 2007 issue in their series of distinctive and important catalogues.
The catalogue starts with the last of the great 17th century Shakespeare folios, the fourth folio from 1685. Perhaps the greatest piece of western literature ever published, the folios preserved Shakespeare's plays, as many as seventeen of which might have been lost forever were it not for the folio editions. With the third folio, seven additional plays not found in the first two were added, though it appears that at most one of these was actually written by Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's time, plays were not regarded as literary works. They were meant to be performed, not read, so often they were never published, but performed from manuscripts. Fortunately, a few of Shakespeare's associates salvaged his plays, preserving them in the folio editions, the first of which appeared in 1623. A first folio sold at auction last year for over $5 million, putting it out of most collectors' reach. The fourth is hardly a budget item, but is not yet that expensive. Item 1. Priced at $185,000.
Item 24 may not be considered one of the greatest literary masterpieces, but it may well have had the greatest impact of any piece of American literature. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was first released. It was a stark attack on slavery, and it could not have come at a more significant time. America was desperately trying to find some sort of compromise between the irreconcilable -- slavery and freedom. The Compromise of 1850 had provided some respite, but abolitionists in the north and those who wished to spread slavery to the new territories from the south were pulling the attempted compromise apart. Into this divide Stowe comes along with her stunning depiction and indictment of slavery in a book which would be read by large numbers of Americans. Its publication would prove to be one of the important events of the 1850s that would push the nation to its inevitable split at the start of the next decade. Item 24 is a first edition of this work of enormous significance. $21,000.
Here is another first edition of monumental importance: On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection...by Charles Darwin, published in 1859. Darwin's theory of evolution was already two decades in the making, formed as result of his role as naturalist on the expedition of the Beagle during the 1830s. He was not unaware of the controversy his findings would generate. Darwin is still a controversial figure in some quarters today, but his findings opened the door to explanations of such things as similarities between species and the existence of fossils which had previously been difficult to explain. Item 35. $58,000.
