Rare Book Monthly Articles - November - 2006 Issue

The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair

The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair

By Bruce McKinney Over the weekend of October 14th and 15th, the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair was held on the grounds of the 1962 World's Fair. It was the perfect setting for the well-attended affair. The fair was organized, as it has been for the past 9 years, by Louis Collins of Louis Collins Books and David Gregor of Gregor Rare Books. Ninety-one exhibitors, primarily from the Northwest, brought on average about 300 items to sell. On Saturday morning, promptly at 10:00 am, the doors opened to an energetic crowd that passed 400 by noon and reached 1000 late ...

Abebooks Reaches The 100 Million Listings Milestone

Abebooks Reaches The 100 Million Listings Milestone

By Michael Stillman In an October 4th press release, the largest old and used books listing site, Abebooks, announced that it had reached a new milestone -- 100 million books listed online. Abe ...

Creating Special Purpose Catalogues

Creating Special Purpose Catalogues

By Bruce McKinney Inventories are broad, collector interests increasingly specific. The internet, that both intensified the trend toward specialization and increasingly satisfies it, does not ...

Alibris To Open UK Site (and Resolve a Longstanding Shipping Problem)

Alibris To Open UK Site (and Resolve a Longstanding Shipping Problem)

By Michael Stillman Alibris has announced that it will be opening a UK site in November, to serve the British and European markets. In the past, there has only been one site, with all orders p...

Where have the Collectors Gone?  Gone to the Internet Everyone!

Where have the Collectors Gone? Gone to the Internet Everyone!

By Bruce McKinney For those who rely on book fairs to sell books the line that comes to mind is William Bendix's "What a revoltin' development this is." New collecting opportunities every day ...

A Great Tool for Booksellers: <i>The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</i>

A Great Tool for Booksellers: <i>The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</i>

by Renee Magriel Roberts Writing really great book descriptions is the key to better bookselling, which I define as providing excellent service and accurate information for customers, combined ...

Closing The Chapter: One Last Sentence For Smiley's Story

Closing The Chapter: One Last Sentence For Smiley's Story

By Michael Stillman The case of map thief E. Forbes Smiley came to a close October 13, 2006, when he was sentenced to five years in prison at the Connecticut Superior Court in New Haven. In thi...

Upcoming Auction:  The Private World of Truman Capote

Upcoming Auction: The Private World of Truman Capote

By Bruce McKinney Truman Capote may have been a man but these days he's an industry. He was born in a red state but is very big business in the blue states these days. He is of course the cel...

Google Loses A Skirmish In A Belgian Court

Google Loses A Skirmish In A Belgian Court

By Michael Stillman An interesting skirmish took place in a Belgian court a few weeks ago which may have implications for the battle between search giant Google and publishers unhappy with Goog...

On Voting

On Voting

By Bruce McKinney Voting has a mysterious power. Those who didn't have it have stormed barricades to get it. The American south felt it was so important they passed laws to keep it beyond the...

Would You Like Fries With That? -- Amazon Sells Groceries

Would You Like Fries With That? -- Amazon Sells Groceries

By Michael Stillman Amazon.com, the world's best-known bookselling site, recently expanded its offerings with the announcement that they would now be selling groceries online. In a letter from ...

Fourteen Catalogues Reviewed In Section Two

Fourteen Catalogues Reviewed In Section Two

Fourteen new booksellers' catalogues are reviewed in Section Two of November's AE Monthly. Represented, along with the U.S., are sellers from England, France, the Netherlands, and Argentina. There ...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
    Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
    Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
    Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
    Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
    Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli
    Auction 59
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 20th 2025
    Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
    Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: (Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie). Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, 2 vols, 1st edition, 1782-1822. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, by Sylvanus Urban, 11 volumes. £700-1,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Shackleton (Ernest). The Heart of the Antarctic, 2 vols, 1st ed, presentation copy, 1909. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Drayton (Michael). Poly Olbion..., London: 1622. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Scheuchzer (Johann Jacob). Ouresiphoites Helveticus, 4 parts in 1, 2nd ed, 1723. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Roberts (Henry, after). Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ..., [1784]. £500-800
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Maffei (Giovanni), Indiarum orientalium Occidentaliumque Descriptio..., 1589. £1,200-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Ortelius (Abraham), Typus Orbis Terrarum, [1598]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Bible [English]. [The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New..., 1613]. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers
    May 14
    Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & Exploration
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000
  • Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.
    Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions