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<b><center>Sotheby’s<br>Original Film Posters<br>27 January - 10 February 2023</b><b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Vertigo (1958), poster, US. The ultimate poster on this classic Hitchcock title, one of three known examples. £40,000 to £60,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Lawrence of Arabia (1962), roadshow poster, US. £8,000 to £12,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Star Wars (1977), style C poster, printer's proof, US. £7,000 to £10,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> The Navigator/ La Croisiere du Navigator (1924), re-release poster (1931), French. £5,000 to £8,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Bullitt (1968), special test poster, US. £3,000 to £5,000.
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<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 817. Bellin's complete five-volume maritime atlas with 581 maps & plates (1764). $24,000 to $30,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 325. An early and important map of the Republic of Texas (1837). $11,000 to $14,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 45. De Bry's early map of North Pole depicting Willem Barentsz' expedition (1601). $3,500 to $4,250.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 154. Poignant map of the United States documenting lynchings (1931). $250 to $325.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 457. Extremely rare matching set of pro-German propaganda from WWI (1914). $2,000 to $2,400.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 815. Homann's world atlas featuring 110 maps in contemporary color (1751). $14,000 to $16,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 60. Miniature pocket globe based on Herman Moll (1785). $3,500 to $4,500.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 8. Visscher's rare carte-a-figures world map (1652). $14,000 to $16,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 158. Matching satirical maps of the US by McCandlish: "Ration Map" & "Bootlegger's Map" (1944). $3,000 to $4,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 820. One of the finest English atlases of the early 19th century (1808). $4,750 to $6,000.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 59. Important milestone in preparation for 1969 moon landing (1963). $750 to $900.<b>Old World Auctions (Feb 8):</b> Lot 805. Superb bible leaf with image of crucifixion of Jesus with gilt highlights (1518). $800 to $950.
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<center><b>Potter & Potter Auctions<br>Fine Books & Manuscripts,<br>including Americana<br>February 16, 2023</b><b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [KELMSCOTT PRESS]. CHAUCER, Geoffrey. <i>The Works…now newly imprinted.</i> Edited by F.S. Ellis. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896. $100,000 to $125,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [EINSTEIN, Albert (1879–1955)]. –– ORLIK, Emil (1870–1932), artist. Lithograph signed (“Albert Einstein”). N.p., 1928. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> TOLKIEN, John Ronald Reuel. <i>[The Lord of the Rings trilogy:] The Fellowship of the Ring.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Two Towers.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Return of the King.</i> 1955. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") and Charles Dudley WARNER. <i>The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.</i> Hartford and Chicago, 1873. $6,000 to $8,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> LOVECRAFT, Howard Phillips. <i>Beyond the Wall of Sleep.</i> Collected by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1943. $2,000 to $3,000.
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<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Black Sun Press] Proust, Marcel, 47 Unpublished Letters from Marcel Proust to Walter Berry, Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1930. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963), <i>Spring and All,</i> first edition, Paris: Contact Publishing Co., 1923. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Washington, George (1732-1799), Autograph Letter Signed. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), Autograph Letter Signed. $30,000 to $50,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862), Autograph Manuscript. $3,000 to $5,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Paris Commnue], Photograph album. $1,500 to $2,500.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Fleming, Ian (1908-1964), <i>Casino Royale,</i> first edition, London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. $3,000 to $4,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Audubon, John James and the Rev. John Bachman, <i>The Quadrupeds of North America,</i> New York: V.G. Audubon, 1849, 1851, 1854. $4,000 to $6,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Lewis, C.S. (1898-1963), <i>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,</i> first edition, London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd, 1952. $600 to $800.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Bhagavad Gita] Wilkins, Charles, trans., <i>The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon…,</i> first edition, London: Printed for C. Nourse, 1785. $700 to $1,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <i>Faust: Eine Tragodie von Goethe,</i> Hammersmith: Printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson & Emery Walker at the Doves Press, 1906-1910. $800 to $1,200.
Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - April - 2009 Issue
Historical Autographs and Documents from Profiles in History
By Michael Stillman
We have received our first catalogue from Calabasas Hills, California, autograph dealer Profiles in History. For those in need of directions, Calabasas Hills is in Los Angeles County, near the city of the same name. Profiles in History specializes in important historical autographs. Not only are the signatures from important people, but many of the documents on which they are offered are historically significant. This is an outstanding collection of items, all of which come with Profiles in History's guarantee of authenticity. Presented is Autograph Catalog 47, and as you will see, it is filled with a truly amazing selection of important autographs.
Item 30 ties together two of the most noted of American abolitionists, the former slave Frederick Douglass and the extreme activist John Brown. Douglass fought for the cause with eloquence of speech, while Brown fought with guns, his final act being an attempt to liberate the arsenal at Harper's Ferry to support a slave revolt. Brown has long evoked mixed emotions for great support of a righteous cause but with violent means toward a noble end. Even Douglass could not approve of Brown's tactics, and yet as these words he penned and signed in 1883 attest, he could not help but appreciate Brown's dedication to the cause: "John Brown saw slavery through no mist or cloud, but in a light of infinite brightness, which left no one of its ten thousand horrors concealed." Priced at $15,000.
President Millard Fillmore was not a man of such enduring principles. Nine days before the Dred Scott decision was announced, Fillmore responded to a question from Ohio Free Soil Congressman Edward Wade concerning the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise with this letter. The Missouri Compromise, agreed to by Congress in 1820, had prohibited the expansion of slavery into most of the West, but this limitation on slavery was about to be struck down in what most would agree was the worst decision ever made by the U.S. Supreme Court. Pens the ever-decisive Fillmore on whether he believed the Missouri Compromise to be constitutional, "I understand the question is now pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, where it has been ably argued, and will soon be decided. Under such circumstances it would be arrogance in me to assume to give an opinion. My duty is to submit to this decision as the last appeal known to our Constitution." Not exactly Lincolnesque. Item 41. $12,500.
Item 70 is a letter from the great magician, Harry Houdini, to the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The two had become great friends, but this letter reveals the breakdown of that friendship. Doyle was a spiritualist, who believed it was possible to séance with the dead. Houdini, being a magician, knew all the tricks of the trade, and believed spiritualism to be nonsense. The break occurred because Doyle's wife was a medium, and Houdini made the mistake of letting her attempt to contact his dead mother. Houdini quickly suspected she was a fraud, and was left with the delicate task of trying to explain his disbelief to his friend. Doyle's wife had written out what Houdini's mother supposedly told her, but as the great magician observed, "...the letter as received was written in the English language, and although my sainted mother lived in America for fifty years, she could not read, write or speak English." Though trying to be gentle with his friend, Houdini recognized the fraud from the start when his mother, a rabbi's wife, supposedly began the séance with the sign of the cross. $25,000.