• 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
  • 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.

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - December - 2021 Issue

A Catalogue for Winter 2022 from Rulon-Miller Books

A winter catalogue for 2022 from Rulon-Miller Books.

A winter catalogue for 2022 from Rulon-Miller Books.

Rulon-Miller Books has released their Catalogue 166 for winter 2022. They are getting a jump on the new year. This is not a catalogue to be categorized. There is something for everyone here. The picture on the cover is from a collection of yachting photographs, 475 of them for those whose collecting interests take them to the sea, but this is not a yachting catalogue. It's just one of many subjects. I think that must be ice on the boat. That's believable for Portland, Maine, in winter. Spectacular and beautiful. Here are some more of the varied items you will find in this catalogue.

 

We begin with a book by A. A. Milne, but it has nothing to do with Winnie-the-Pooh or any of the other characters in the Hundred Acre Wood. Rather, it is Milne's first novel, published in 1917, a fantasy tale intended as much for adults as children. The title is Once on a Time. In the Preface, Milne explains it is “for yourself (his wife) and the Colonel's children to act.” Not his own children? No. Christopher Robin Milne was not born until 1920. The illustrations were by H. M. Brock, not E. H. Shepard. Milne wrote plays, novels, and poems before Winnie-the-Pooh came around, and while his other work is respected, the “silly old bear” came to overshadow everything else. This copy is a one-of-a-kind because of the inscription it contains - “To my dearest father and mother from their always loving son A. A. M. 27/11/17.” Item 101. Priced at $2,500.

 

This is an archive from an odd but apparently popular type of “entertainer” in the 1950s and 1960s, a Christian ventriloquist. Katheryn Rea and her husband operated an electronics store and a drive-in theater in Columbus, Ohio. It does not appear she achieved much notice outside of her home area, but she was a dedicated messenger of the good word who used the novelty of ventriloquism to spread the message. The archive includes her dummy, “Chubby,” who stands 32 inches tall. There are also 25 pages of scripts and notes, publications related to ventriloquism, ephemera, correspondence, and a hard-backed suitcase obviously used to transport “Chubby” and other items to her performances. There are even lyrics to her song beginning “Jesus is coming and the time is near,” sung to the tune of “Davy Crockett.” Ventriloquism has not always been associated with wholesomeness, but Mrs. Rea performed it in keeping with 1950s Midwestern values. Item 30. $2,000.

 

Now for an entertainer not quite so wholesome. Victoria Vetri, also known as Angela Dorian, was an actress, landing roles is several movies and television shows, including Rosemary's Baby, though never in a leading role. She is also known for being Playboy's Playmate of the Year for 1968. The archive runs from 1959-2010 though there are some gaps. She had a promising career, but it never went that far because of the usual problems, drugs, alcohol, abuse, exploitation, sex of various sorts, all the roadblocks you might expect for a beautiful young lady trying to make her way in Hollywood. There are 7,500 pages about her life, consisting of journals, letters, poetry, drawings, doodles, and illustrations. It ends in 2010 though Ms. Vetri is still with us because in that year, she shot to kill her fourth husband. He survived. She was sentenced to nine years in prison most of which she served before being released. Item 153. $65,000.

 

This book recounts one of the earliest internal explorations of America, the last visit of Antoine Charles Louis de la Salle, Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Sale [sic] fit dans le Golfe de Mexique... published in 1713. La Salle traveled down the Mississippi River, not just to explore it, but to claim the territory for France. Spain was its rival in the deep interior of America at the time. La Salle named it for King Louis XIV, it becoming the Louisiana Territory Thomas Jefferson purchased from France a century later. The explorer had returned to France for supplies and men when he returned to America. However, he missed his mark, the mouth of the Mississippi, instead ending up in Texas. His men were disappointed, and after a long time wandering around they took it out on their leader. They killed la Salle. That is why Henri Joutel is the author of this book, not la Salle. Joutel, second in command, expected the men to treat him the same, but they relented, and eventually he led a group back to the river's mouth and all the way up the Mississippi and on to Quebec. That was quite a recovery. Item 81. $12,500.

 

This is an invitation to see a play few people took up. The play itself appears to be lost, but the broadside invitation has survived. It was scheduled for Leeds, in Great Britain, in 1838. The title was Beacon Hill America in 1775. It lasted for all of one performance. The author was Morris Barnett, known more as an actor than a playwright. Perhaps the subject matter was still touchy for the British, or maybe the play was just bad. Whatever the reason, it never made it to Broadway, bombing in Leeds. Item 149. $2,500.

 

Here is an item you do not have in your collection. I am confident of this though I know nothing about what you collect. The title is Pagalagadan iti pal-lutan by Martino N. Gaerlan, published in 1910. It is a set of rules for cockfighting written in the Philippine language of Iloko. OCLC located only one copy of it. Now you can own the other. Item 34. $1,250.

 

Rulon-Miller Books may be reached at 651-290-0700 or rulon@rulon.com. Their website is www.rulon.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
    Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
    Ketterer, May 26: PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
    Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer Rare Books
    Auction May 26th
    Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
    Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
    Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
  • Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
    Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
    Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
    Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
    Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
    Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
    Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
    Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
    Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
    Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.

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