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Fonsie Mealy’s
Chatsworth Summer Fine Art Sale
18th June 2025Fonsie Mealy, June 18: William IV, c1830, oversized slope-top Rosewood Davenport Desk, Attributed to Gillows of Lancaster. With Provenance to Oscar Wilde.Fonsie Mealy, June 18: William IV, c1830, oversized slope-top Rosewood Davenport Desk, Attributed to Gillows of Lancaster. With Provenance to Oscar Wilde.Fonsie Mealy, June 18: William IV, c1830, oversized slope-top Rosewood Davenport Desk, Attributed to Gillows of Lancaster. With Provenance to Oscar Wilde.Fonsie Mealy, June 18: French Bateau Bed, exhibition piece from the Exposition Universelle—The Paris World’s Fair, 1878. Third quarter of the 19th century. With Provenance to Oscar Wilde. -
Bonhams, June 16-24: KELMSCOTT PRESS. RUSKIN. The Nature of Gothic. 1892. $1,500 - $2,500Bonhams, June 16-24: ASHENDENE PRESS. The Wisdom of Jesus. 1932. $2,000 - $3,000Bonhams, June 16-24: CHARLOTTE BRONTE WRITES AS GOVERNESS. Autograph Letter Signed, 1851. $15,000 - $25,000Bonhams, June 16-24: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS. BRONTE, Emily. New York, 1848. $3,000 - $5,000Bonhams, June 16-24: IAN FLEMING ASSOCIATION COPY. You Only Live Twice. London, 1964. $7,000 - $9,000Bonhams, June 16-24: DELUXE EDITION WITH ORIGINAL PAINTING. BUKOWSKI, Charles. War All the Time. 1984. $3,000 - $5,000Bonhams, 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 - $150,000Bonhams, June 16-24: EINSTEIN ON SCIENCE, WAR AND MORALITY. Autograph Letter Signed, 1949. $20,000 - $30,000Bonhams, June 16-24: SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. WASHINGTON, George. Engraved document signed, 1786. $8,000 - $12,000Bonhams, June 16-24: AN EARLY CHINESE-MADE 34-STAR U.S. CONSULAR FLAG. $8,000 - $12,000Bonhams, June 16-24: SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF LINCOLN WITH HIS SON TAD. 1864. $60,000 - $90,000Bonhams, June 16-24: MALCOLM X WRITES FROM KENYA. Postcard signed, 1964. $4,000 - $6,000
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Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 567. One of the Earliest & Most Desirable Printed Maps of Arabia - by Holle/Germanus (1482) Est. $55,000 - $65,000Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 681. Zatta's Complete Atlas with 218 Maps in Full Contemporary Color (1779) Est. $27,500 - $35,000Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 347. MacDonald Gill's Landmark "Wonderground Map" of London (1914) Est. $1,800 - $2,100Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 1. Fries' "Modern" World Map with Portraits of Five Kings (1525) Est. $4,000 - $4,750Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 539. Ortelius' Superb, Decorative Map of Cyprus in Full Contemporary Color (1573) Est. $1,100 - $1,400Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 51. Mercator's Foundation Map for the Americas in Full Contemporary Color (1630) Est. $3,250 - $4,000Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 667. Manuscript Bible Leaf with Image of Mary and Baby Jesus (1450) Est. $1,900 - $2,200Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 226. "A Powerful Example of Color Used to Make a Point" (1895) Est. $400 - $600Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 290. One of the Most Decorative Early Maps of South America - from Linschoten's "Itinerario" (1596) Est. $7,000 - $8,500Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 62. Coronelli's Influential Map of North America with the Island of California (1688) Est. $10,000 - $12,000Old World Auctions (June 18): Lot 589. The First European-Printed Map of China - by Ortelius (1584) Est. $4,000 - $5,000
Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2008 Issue
Arctic and Canadiana from Bjarne Tokerud Bookseller
By Michael Stillman
We recently received our first catalogue from Bjarne Tokerud Bookseller, Inc., though this is number 56 for the Victoria, British Columbia bookseller. Offered is a selection of Arctic and Canadiana. As the cover photographs suggest, you may want to dress warmly before reading this catalogue. It is filled with high adventures, though what made many so adventurous were the challenges against ice and cold. These may not be exploits you want to try for yourself, but they make exciting reading. Here are some of the items we found in this latest catalogue from Tokerud. Note: all prices are given in Canadian dollars, which are currently virtually equivalent to U.S. dollars.
The most notable of Canadian inland travels were those performed by Alexander Mackenzie in the late 18th century. Mackenzie was a fur trader for the Northwest Company who wished to find an overland route to the Pacific. His account of those travels is found in this 1801 book Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence [sic] Through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the Years 1789 and 1793, with a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur Trade of that Country. He believed he might be able to find a route from Great Slave Lake, in the Northwest Territories, all the way to the Pacific. He followed the wide river exiting that lake all the way to its end. That river is now named for him - the Mackenzie River - but it exited in what he called the "Frozen Ocean," or as we know it, the Arctic Ocean. A disappointed Mackenzie reportedly dubbed it the "River of Disappointment," with Sir John Franklin later renaming it for the explorer. Despite this disappointment, Alexander Mackenzie was obviously not easily discouraged, as four years later, he tried again. This time, he traveled from Lake Athabasca down the Peace River to the Fraser (which he thought to be the Columbia River). However, after traveling a ways down the Fraser, he followed the advice of local Indians and proceeded along a combination overland and river route that eventually brought him to the Bella Coola River, and from there into the salt water Dean Channel that empties into the Pacific. It was here he carved his name on a rock with the date July 22, 1793, to show he had reached his goal. Mackenzie was the first European to cross the North American continent north of Mexico. Item 26 is an inscribed first edition presentation copy of his book, to Henry Addington, British Prime Minister from 1801-1804. Priced at $35,000.
Many years later, the Canadian government sent Captain R.P. Bishop out to find Mackenzie's Rock. That he did, and the Department of the Interior published this pamphlet around the time of this trip in 1923: Mackenzie's Rock. With a Map Showing the Course Followed by the Explorer from Bella Coola, B.C., to the Rock... Item 60. $30.
It is hard to imagine deliberately subjecting oneself to a journey such as that of Fridtjof Nansen and his crew. They hoped to reach the North Pole, but with no expectation of a brief trip. They loaded up with five years worth of provisions and headed along the Northeast Passage. They turned their ship, the Fram (later used by Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen), into the ice flows, hoping to drift to the North Pole. After a year of this, they concluded they would not reach their goal, so Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen took off with 28 dogs and two kayaks for a land journey, knowing they would not be able to return to the Fram. They were turned back short of the Pole by terrible conditions, but on April 8, 1895, they reached farther north than anyone before. The two then had to make their way back south, wintering over on some islands before running across a British expedition the following year on Franz Josef Land. Item 33 is Nansen's book, "Farthest North." Being a Record of a Voyage for Exploration of the Ship Fram 1893-96, and of a Fifteen Months' Sleigh Journey by Dr. Nansen and Lieut. Johansen... published in 1897 (this is the first British edition). $350.