A Michael Hurley Tribute from the Twelfth Street Booksellers
A 25th anniversary tribute to Michael Hurley.
By Michael Stillman
Twelfth Street Booksellers, the Southern California specialist in gemology books, has published an unexpected catalogue. It is a combination 25th Anniversary and Tribute to Michael Hurley. As explained by proprietor Lillian Cole, it was the eccentric Los Angeles bibliophile Michael Hurley who gave her a start in the book trade. Not that she ever met Hurley, but then again, not that many people not already booksellers at the time did. He was rather reclusive, living alone with his books.
Hurley came to Los Angeles around 1930, a young man who had been a high school valedictorian back in Iowa. He found a job at the post office, rented a small home, and began a life of book collecting. It seems he did little else for the remainder of his life. He never married, never owned a home, never even bought a car. He bought books, ultimately 35,000 of them. He crammed his small home and garage with these volumes, piled high to the ceilings, leaving little room for anything else. His house must have looked like that of the legendary English collector Sir Thomas Phillipps, only smaller. If he had any purpose to his collecting, other than a love of books gone so wild it could well be described as "bibliomania," it is unknown. Hurley made no provisions for what would happen to his books after he died. He had no heirs. The collection fell to Los Angeles County to dispose of when he died in 1984 at the age of 77. What was determined to be the very best of his collection was turned over to Dawson's Book Shop, which published a catalogue. The remainder was put up for sale at several auctions, where they were sold primarily in mixed boxes. It was hardly the way to disperse a collection of this magnitude, but Hurley evidently was unconcerned about its fate once he was separated from it.
The passing of Hurley crossed with Ms. Cole's entrance into the book trade. She had recently become interested in becoming a bookseller, so she attended one of the Hurley auctions. It was probably the perfect starting point for a new bookseller without a specific field. If there was a particular focus to Hurley's collecting, it escapes me. He seems to have collected everything, more in the mode of the aforementioned Phillipps than any other collector who comes to mind. His auctions must have been a grab bag, but through them, Ms. Cole obtained the inventory necessary to start her business. In time, she moved to her current specialization, gemology books. Those from the Hurley collection not sold years ago went to the back of the bookshelves, almost as buried as they must have been in Hurley's house. Now, with her 25th anniversary in the trade, Ms. Cole has pulled some of them off the shelves, to create this latest catalogue which combines some of the Hurley titles, some purchased elsewhere, and some from her specialty in gemology. Here are a few samples from this catalogue.
Hurley owned his share of bibliographies, but here is an unusual one: The Annals of Murder. A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900. This 1961 bibliography by Thomas McDade includes 1,126 entries, meaning it covers a small town's worth of people who disappeared from this life with a little assistance. A quick flip through TV programming today indicates this subject still fascinates us the way it did these earlier generations of readers. Item 27. Priced at $95.
Sotheby’s Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M 18 October 2024
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Herodianus Syrus, Herodiani Historiarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1524, Parisian binding for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, ca. 1540
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Musaeus, Opusculum de Herone et Leandro, Venice, Aldo, 1495 (Greek text), interleaved with 1497–1498 (Latin text), English olive morocco by Charles Lewis, the Botfield copy
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Horatius Flaccus, Horatius, Venice, Aldo, 1501, Bolognese brown goatskin (between 1501 and 1503), arms of Mino Rossi and illuminated initials throughout
Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Lucretius, De rerum natura, Venice, Aldo, 1500, English early eighteenth-century red morocco, the Fletcher copy
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: CATESBY, MARK. 1683-1749. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. $100,000 - $150,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and their Territories. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: ADAMS ON HIS PEAR TREES AND A LOST PORTRAIT BY SALEM ARTIST HANNAH CROWNINSHIELD. ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: EARLIEST MAP DEVOTED TO NORTH AMERICA. FORLANI, PAULO. fl.1560-1571. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: HAMILTON DEFENDS THE CONSTITUTION. HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. 1757-1804. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION BROADSIDE. Boston, September 14, 1768. $5,000 - $8,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: ONE OF THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATIONS OF A SURGICAL PROCEDURE. BARTHOLOMAEUS ANGLICUS. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: RICHARD FEYNMAN'S ANNOTATED COPY, WITH TWO EARLY FEYNMAN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS. $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN COMPUTING. TURING, ALAN MATHISON. 1912-1954. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: FINE OIL PORTRAIT OF ALBERT EINSTEIN BY EUGEN SPIRO. $40,000 - $60,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: PENICILLIN MOLD MEDALLION INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER FLEMING. FLEMING, ALEXANDER. 1881-1955. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: APPLE "TWIGGY" MACINTOSH PROTOTYPE USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMONSTRATION SOFTWARE. $80,000 - $120,000
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: A Superb Extra-illustrated Copy of Nicolay and Hay’s Work About Lincoln. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The First Volume of De Bry's Great Voyages, Thomas Hariot's Description of Virginia. $50,000 – 70,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: An autographed cabinet card of Custer as lieutenant colonel. From his last sitting. $800 – 1,200.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 24: The Congressional Committee, Lincoln's Funeral Springfield Illinois, 3 May 1865. $4,000 – 6,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: A remarkable ninth plate daguerreotype of an interracial couple. $30,000 – 50,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: What may be the earliest known images of an identified plantation and enslaved African Americans posed with their owner. $20,000 – 30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: Through Tickets to All Principal Points West Via Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad For Sale at This Office. $500 – 700.
Freeman’s | Hindman, Oct. 25: 15th New York Infantry / Regiment of Engineers GAR regimental colors. Ca 1880. $1,500 – 2,500.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1556. Senghor, Les Élégies Majeures. Geneve 1978.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1572. Lew Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. First Edition, Moscow, 1878.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 49. Petrarca. Das Gluecksbuch, Augsburg, 1536.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1060. Immanuel Kant, Critik der reinen Vernunft. First Edition, Riga, 1781.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 585. Bonaparte, Iconografia della fauna Italica. Rome, 1832f.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 548. Robert Fludd. Utriusque cosmi maioris, Frankfurt, 1617f.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1496. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 571. Christian von Wolff. Works, Halle 1741f.
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 969. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Dekorationen innerer Raeume. Berlin 1874.
Jeschke Jádi Auction 153 Friday October 25 and Saturday October 26, 2024
Jeschke Jádi, Oct. 25-26: Lot 1457. Goethe. Das Tagebuch. Print on Vellum. Berlin, Officina Serpentis. 1934.
