This month we review our first catalogue from Voyager Press Rare Books & Manuscripts. Voyager Press is located in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, and is headed up by Bernhard Lauser. Logically, for a firm named "Voyager," they specialize in travels and voyages. However, much of their material is not the typical travel account. They offer a mix of books on travels and explorations along with archive collections of various travelers, often consisting of letters, manuscripts, and other materials reflecting their journeys. This latest catalogue, prepared for and headed San Francisco Bookfair 2011, provides a good cross section of the material Voyager offers.
We will start with a book that solved one of the greatest mysteries of the era of exploration. In 1785, French Commodore Jean Francois de La Perouse set out on one of the most ambitious of explorations. His ships rounded Cape Horn that summer on the way to a journey that would cover most lands of the Pacific. He sailed up the South American coast, visited Easter Island and Hawaii, came back to Alaska and California, then headed west, visiting Russia, Japan, and China. Finally, he sailed into Botany Bay in Australia in 1788, met with the British there, and then headed east. He was never heard from again. Missions were sent to find his ships, but no trace was to be found.
Peter Dillon was a sailor who had worked on various trading vessels in his career. By 1826, he was placed in command of a vessel which was traveling to Fiji when he made a stop in the Santa Cruz Islands. There he found natives in possession of European objects, which he surmised must have come from La Perouse's ships. The natives told them they came from a wreck off of Vanikoro Island. Dillon managed to get the British in India to give him a research ship, which he took to Vanikoro. Dillon collected various artifacts and took them to France. He presented his findings to Barthelemy de Lesseps, the last living survivor of the La Perouse expedition (he had left it in Russia to bring La Perouse's notes back to France overland), who identified their source. Dillon's book (this is the first French edition from 1830) is entitled Voyage aux Iles de la mer du Sud en 1827 et 1828 et relation de la decouverte du sort de La Perouse. It is inscribed by the author to Marshal Etienne Alexandre MacDonald, who despite the Scottish name (his father came from Scotland), was French and was a major military leader during the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Priced at $9,750.
Not all voyages are intended for discovery. Offered is the logbook kept by Royal Navy Sub-Lieutenant F. Papillon from 1869-70 on HMS Monarch. It was at this time that George Peabody made his final journey home, quite final as Mr. Peabody was deceased. George Peabody was born in South Danvers, Massachusetts (later renamed "Peabody" in his honor), but settled in Baltimore, where he went into business as a merchant and later a banker. He was enormously successful. In 1837 he moved to London, where he lived for the remainder of his life. There he specialized in currency transactions and selling American securities, notably in the new American railroads. Again he was most successful. Peabody determined to give his fortune to worthy causes, earning the reputation as the first great philanthropist. He was admired in both England and America, as he contributed liberally to both nations' causes. When he died in 1869, the Queen gave him the extraordinary honor of temporary burial in Westminster Abbey. However, Peabody's will provided that he be buried in his hometown, so Prime Minister Gladstone arranged for the Monarch, the newest and most impressive ship in the Royal Navy, to bring him home. President Grant ordered the U.S. Corvette Plymouth to guide them. Papillon's log indicates the ship was visited by various important persons on Peabody's way home, including General Sherman and Admiral Farragut. The Monarch log is offered together with Papillon's log for the HMS Sphinx in 1867-68. $1,750.
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, 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
![<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/dc0b1dc0-f7c8-40b6-a5a6-870689484c07.jpg "<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/033cf239-2b91-4588-aca2-50ad0a9c43b3.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/3ecbc3d4-52ef-41c5-8a8d-d4a158a51253.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/fcfb0b9a-4f59-4dc8-87fd-1dfdf90611dc.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000")
