• University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books
    Now through Nov. 19
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 308 - Bob Dylan Handwritten & Signed Lyrics to "Just Like a Woman" With Jeff Rosen & JSA Authentication
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 455 - Isaac Newton Admiration For Judaism & Moral Continuity With Christianity! 350+ Words in his Hand - Extraordinary Content!
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 219 - 371g Moon Meteorite, Incredible Find - Laâyoune 002
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books
    Now through Nov. 19
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 448 - Scarce Einstein AM on Unified Field Theory, 180+ Words & 11 Equations in His Hand! From His Published Article, "A Generalization of the Relativistic Theory of Gravitation"
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 159 - Woodrow Wilson Baseball Signed for WWI Red Cross Fundraiser, Ex. Forbes & PSA Authentic - Finest Known!
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 84 - Lee Harvey Oswald ALS to Brother, Trying Desperately to Get out of Russia! Highly Important
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books
    Now through Nov. 19
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 152 - George Washington Signed Discharge for MA Soldier Whose Regiment Was at Bunker Hill!
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 88 - Abraham Lincoln Fully Signed Military Appointment for Mexican War Vet & Respected Cavalryman
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 188 - Apollo XI Astronauts & Their Wives Signed Photo, Plus Crew Signed Cover, From Apollo XI Presidential Goodwill Tour Era, Pre-Cert Zarelli
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books
    Now through Nov. 19
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 265 - Martin Luther King, Jr. TLS Re: "Stride Toward Freedom" Film Rights To Literary Agent Marie Rodell
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 324 - John Lennon Signed Apple Records Check, PSA GEM MT 10! Possibly Finest Known
    University Archives, Nov. 19:
    Lot 79 - John & Jacqueline Kennedy Signed WH 1963 Christmas Gift Inscribed to Close Friend Joan Braden, PSA Authentic
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  • Sotheby’s
    Book Week
    November & December
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 6-20: Tory, Geoffroy. L'Art et science de la vraye proportion des Lettres. Paris 1549. Seconde édition. In-8. Reliure de P.L. Martin. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 6-20: Gauguin, Paul. Lettre autographe signée à son ami Émile Bernard. [Le Pouldu août 1889]. Illustrée d'un croquis original. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 6-20: [Portulan — Joan Martines, attribué à]. Carte portulan de la côte atlantique de l'Amérique du Sud. [Messine, vers 1570-1591.] €15,000 to €20,000.
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 6-20: Zamora, Alonso de. Historia de la provincia de San Antonio del nuevo reyno de Granada... Barcelone, 1701. €10,000 to €15,000.
    Sotheby’s, Nov. 6-20: [Chastenet de Puységur, Antoine]. Détail sur la navigation aux côtes de Saint-Domingue... Paris, 1787. €5,000 to €7,000.

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2009 Issue

The Strange and the Serious from Garrett Scott, Bookseller

More of the odd from Garret Scott, Bookseller.

More of the odd from Garret Scott, Bookseller.


By Michael Stillman

Recently arrived is Catalogue Twenty-Four from Garrett Scott, Bookseller. Scott's catalogues are always among the most unusual and entertaining you will find. They are filled with strange writings from strange people, mad scientists, medical quacks, bad poets and the like. That is not to say all of his titles are weird. There are serious and intelligent writings here as well. It's just that there is something magnetic about the works of people whose minds are a train wreck. Here are some of each from Scott's latest catalogue.

Here is a Shakespearean item most Shakespeare collectors do not own. Whether the story is true remains unknown, though I will admit to having my doubts. The item is How Shakespeare's Skull was Stolen and Found. By a Warwickshire Man, published in 1884. According to the unknown author, around 1794, Horace Walpole, over drinks one night, announced he would pay a handsome sum to anyone who would bring him Shakespeare's skull. Supposedly, a group of men took up the challenge some time later, broke into his grave, removed the skull, covered up the break-in so it would not be noticed, and brought the skull to Walpole. An evidently more sober Walpole refused to pay for it, whereupon the skull ended up being dumped in a churchyard. Some 50 years later, the anonymous "Warwickshire Man," examining Walpole's papers, deciphered the story and the skull's whereabouts, retrieved it and returned it to its grave. Then, he kept silent for another 35 years before finally revealing the story in this book. Alas poor Shakespeare, I knew him. Item 100. Priced at $50.

Item 23 is a book of poems, Songs from the St. Lawrence, by the prolific poet Marion Albina Bigelow. Scott notes she seemed to specialize in "lingering disease and childhood mortality." So we have poems such as Children Disinterred, inspired by witnessing the bodies of four dead children disinterred so they could be buried next to their mother. Then there is the e'er popular Two Smothered Children, with stanzas such as:

"Nay, their death was strangely fearful!
No fond parent closed their eyes,
And no voice of pity answer’d
To their feebly moaning cries!"

For $100, you can have a whole book full of these to recite to your dearest.

Item 112 is The Diary of a Bird Freely Translated into Human Language, by Henry Davis Minot. This is a first-person (first-bird?) account of the life of a warbler, who has a message of conservation to tell his human friends. This 1880 work may sound like another of the loony titles in Scott's catalogue, but this is a legitimate book by a serious ornithologist. Minot may be better known as co-author of the first book (pamphlet) written by his Harvard buddy, Theodore Roosevelt, The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N.Y. Minot chose to devote the rest of his life to the study of birds, while Roosevelt went on to do other things. $125.

Here is a book whose point is very different from what you would expect based on the lead in. States the writer, "...in free and enlightened Governments, where every man participates in public affairs, where the road to preferment is open to all; where merit, and not birth, confers distinction; where enterprise and industry insure a just reward; where none but salutary restraints are imposed, and consequently where the whole energies of a people are kept in constant requisition, it is not surprising that the mental faculties are often deranged." I was really expecting them to say that in an idyllic society such as this, people are happy, prosperous or something nice, not mentally deranged. Evidently we would be healthier mentally in an unfree, unenlightened society where the road to success is closed to all not born of wealth and privilege. This quote comes from the Third Annual Report of the Directors of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, December 13, 1837, and one wonders who was running the lunatic asylum, the officers or the inmates. Item 121. $75.

Item 148 is the erudite-sounding title The Logic of History: A Study in Astral Mathematics by Jas. S. Taylor, published in 1960. Taylor had much experience from which to speak at the time, being a man 89 years of age. His thesis was historic occurrences were determined by events taking place on Neptune. He was then able to demonstrate the obvious connections. So, the 164.8 years period of Neptune's orbit coincides perfectly with the time between the American Militia Act of 1792 and the deployment of federal troops to enforce integration in Little Rock in 1957. And, the "punctum of opposition," 82 years, 4 months and 3 days, is the time that separates the Provisional Treaty of Paris in 1782 and Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Mere coincidence? I think not. If Lee had had access to this book, he would have known it was useless to resist. Defeat was in the stars, or Neptune. $75.

Garrett Scott, Bookseller may be reached at 734-741-8605 or garrett@bibliophagist.com. His website is www.GSBbooks.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 75. The Second Printed Map of the North American Continent - Full Contemporary Color (1593) Est. $35,000 - $40,000
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 37. Schedel's Ancient World Map with Fantastic Humanoid Creatures (1493) Est. $16,000 - $18,000
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 104. Important Revolutionary War Plan of Battle of Quebec in Contemporary Color (1776) Est. $4,000 - $4,750
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 43. Mercator's Map of the North Pole - the First Printed Map Devoted to the Arctic (1606) Est. $2,750 - $3,500
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 237. Rare and Striking Bird's-Eye View of Lawrence, Kansas (1880) Est. $2,000 - $2,500
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 10. Rare Map from Atlas Maior with Representations of the Seasons in Contemporary Color (1662) Est. $14,000 - $17,000
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 374. Bunting's Map of Europe Depicted as the Queen of the World (1589) Est. $2,000 - $2,400
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 590. Willem Blaeu's Magnificent Carte-a-Figures Map of Asia (1634) Est. $2,750 - $3,500
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 647. The Earliest and Most Decorative Map of the East Coast of Africa (1596) Est. $3,000 - $3,750
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 710. Ruscelli's Complete, Third Edition Atlas with 65 Maps (1574) Est. $9,500 - $11,000
    Old World Auctions (Nov 12):
    Lot 696. Superb Hand-Colored Image of the Adoration of the Shepherds (1502) Est. $800 - $950
  • Freeman’s, Nov. 13: HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Three Stories and Ten Poems. First edition, inscribed to his cousin, Ruth White Lowry. $60,000-80,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: CURTIS, Edward S. The North American Indian... Portfolio and two text volumes. $20,000-30,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: A Superb Illuminated Manuscript of Tennyson’s Le Morte d'Arthur, ca. 1910, by Alberto Sangorksi and in an exceptional Riviere binding. $40,000-50,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: A Remarkable Epistle from Robert Burns to Frances Dunlop, containing all lines of the first version of "Written in Friars Carse Hermitage" and 12 lines of the first version of "First Epistle to Robert Graham Esq." $20,000-30,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: FAULKNER, William. Go Down, Moses. First edition, limited issue, one of 100 copies signed by Faulkner. $10,000-15,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: MAUGHAM, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. First English edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Maugham, in the rare suppressed dust-jacket. $40,000-50,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: An Excessively Rare First Issue and Previously Unrecorded Copy of Shakespeare’s Third Folio. $40,000-60,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: AUDUBON, John James. Louisiana Heron, Ardea Ludoviciana. (Plate CCXVII). $30,000-40,000
    Freeman’s, Nov. 13: HERBERT, Frank. Dune, 1965. First edition, inscribed by Herbert. $8,000-12,000
  • Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Presentation Copy of a Whitman "Holy Grail." Whitman, Walt. $10,000-$15,000.
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Endymion in Original Boards. Keats, John. $8,000-
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Association Copy of the Privately Printed Edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Potter, Beatrix. $8,000-$12,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Christina Rossetti's Own Copy of Her First Book. Rossetti, Christina G. $8,000-$12,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: The Borden Copy of The Life of Merlin in an Elaborate Binding by Riviere. Heywood, Thomas, Translator. $6,000-$8,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Arion Press. Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass. $4,000-$6,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Call It Sleep in the First State Jacket. Roth, Henry. $2,000-$3,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Steinbeck's Best-Known Work. Steinbeck, John. $2,000-$3,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: A Fine Jewelled Binding Signed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Sangorski, Francis. $40,000-$60,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter: A Complete Set of First Editions. Potter, Beatrix. $2,000-$3,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Kelmscott Shelley. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Poetical Works. $3,000-$5,000
    Bonhams, Nov. 3-13: Inscribed by Martin Luther King Jr. King, Martin Luther, Jr. $3,000-$5,000

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