Rare Book Monthly Articles - March - 2011 Issue

The San Francisco ABAA Book Fair - in the rear view mirror

The ABAA’s San Francisco Book Fair has come and gone and participants returned home, left for vacation or moved on to the next show.   For book collectors and institutions these shows are special events, for dealers part of the modern formula for meeting clients and selling books.  By most accounts the show met or exceeded expectations.  Certainly the telltale signs of a good show; a seamless process, good attendance, and anecdotal evidence of satisfactory to robust sales, suggest a successful event that portends well short-term but casts little light on the future.  Such is the state of th...

Dan Gregory Talks Tech for the Trade

“The future of internet antiquarian bookselling,” says Dan Gregory “is certainly not with companies like ABE or Amazon. They don't know anything about antiquarian books themselves, and they don't o...

Collecting for Today and for Tomorrow

At the recent ABAA Fair in San Francisco desire and logic met head on when I saw a very nice copy of Burr’s New York Atlas.  It is apparently the 3rd or 4th edition that has the Ithaca, New York in...

Borders… $99 E-Readers and Bankruptcy

Two major stories have come out of America's second largest chain of bookstores, and while the two are technically unrelated, they are very intertwined. A few weeks ago, Borders announced that they...

31 Laid Off at Powell's - But What Does It Mean?

Powell's Books, the large Portland, Oregon, retail store and online bookseller recently announced that it would be laying off 31 employees. This represents 7% of its unionized workforce. This numbe...

Those Buttons - the Other Services that Come with the AE Database

Many of you are now subscribers to the AE Database (and we hope many more will join them soon). The AE Database is a compilation of bibliographic records, primarily taken from auctions, both recent...

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

When you look at an AE page the chances are very high that what you see and the sequence of things you see are unique to you.  You may prioritize the site by color, size of words or by the words th...

New Thinking about Some Old Ideas

The news arrived on page D2 of the ever-thinner San Francisco Chronicle on Friday 25th that “Thunderbolt ups new MacBook’s speed, power.”  The story focuses on a new technology – Thunderbolt – “to ...

Census Trying to Locate All Cranwell (Subscribers') Editions of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom

A census for all copies of the subscribers' edition (1926) of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom is now underway. T.E. Lawrence is better known as Lawrence of Arabia, a British officer who adv...

Elizabethan Life and Law Exhibition at Yale University

There is an exhibition taking place at the Yale Law Library, Life and Law in Early Modern England, celebrating British life in the Elizabethan Age. It is being put on by the Lillian Goldman Law Lib...

20 New Catalogues Reviewed in Section 2

This has been a busy month for book catalogue writers. We have 20 new ones up for review. Yeoman's in the Fork has issued their first catalogue. Simon Beattie Antiquarian Books and Music has issued...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Isaac Newton on chemistry and matter, and alchemy, Autograph Manuscript, "A Key to Snyders," 3 pp, after 1674. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Exceptionally rare first printing of Plato's Timaeus. Florence, 1484. $50,000 - $80,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: On the Philosophy of Self-Interest: Adam Smith's copy of Helvetius's De l'homme, Paris, 1773. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: "Magical Calendar of Tycho Brahe" - very rare hermetic broadside. Engraved by Merian for De Bry. c.1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Author's presentation issue of Einstein's proof of Relativity, "Erklärung der Perihelbewegung des Merkur aus der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie." 1915. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: First Latin edition of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Paris, 1520. $20,000 - $30,000.
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: De Broglie manuscript on the nature of matter in quantum physics, 3 pp, 1954. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Tesla autograph letter signed on electricty and electromagnetic theory. 1894. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Heinrich Hertz scientific manuscript on his mentor Hermann Von Helmholtz, 1891. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: The greatest illustrated work in Alchemy: Micheal Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. Oppenheim, 1618. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Illustrated Alchemical manuscript, a Mysterium Magnum of the Rosicurcians, 18th-century. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 28 – May 7: Rare Largest Paper Presentation Copy of Newton's Principia, London, 1726. The third and most influential edition. $60,000 - $90,000
  • Doyle, May 1: Thomas Jefferson expresses fears of "a war of extermination" in Saint-Dominigue. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An exceptional presentation copy of Fitzgerald's last book, in the first issue dust jacket. $25,000 to $35,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The rare first signed edition of Dorian Gray. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The Prayer Book of Jehan Bernachier. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Van Dyck's Icones Principum Virorum Doctorum. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, May 1: The magnificent Cranach Hamlet in the deluxe binding by Dõrfner. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, May 1: A remarkable unpublished manuscript of a voyage to South America in 1759-1764. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, May 1: Bouchette's monumental and rare wall map of Lower Canada. $12,000 to $18,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An rare original 1837 abolitionist woodblock. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An important manuscript breviary in Middle Dutch. $15,000 to $25,000.
    Doyle, May 1: An extraordinary Old Testament manuscript, circa 1250. $20,000 to $30,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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