Rare Book Monthly Articles - September - 2023 Issue

Safeguarding History: A life with paper by Kenneth W. Rendell

Worlds apart:  books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera   Kenneth Rendell, now 80, a life-long collector-dealer in collectibles, has written an immensely interesting account of his life in our field.  This book, his ninth, is being released October 3rd, 2023 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon and elsewhere.   When kids find their imaginations soaring about old books and paper, they inevitably daydream about discovering gems and subsequently share their prizes with luminaries, collectors and institutions.  In the human imagination, possibilities live.  Children have long been drawn into the m...

Where Do AI Programs Get Their Data? It Turns Out Some Comes from Copyrighted Books, Without Permission

Where does the information you get from artificial intelligence (AI) sources like ChatGPT come from? It comes from a lot places, including the reams of data on the internet, but a significant sourc...

The “Bouquinistes” of Paris and the Green Pandora’s Boxes

The city of Paris will welcome the Olympic games in 2024. As the opening ceremony on the Seine River approaches, the officials plan to remove the emblematic booksellers’ wooden boxes from the pictu...

An Open Letter to the Rare Book Hub-Rare Book Monthly Community on behalf of Rare Book School

I am grateful to Bruce McKinney for providing access to this forum to give his subscribers a little bit of information about Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.   To the extent you re...

Tom Verlaine's Massive Book Collection Being Sold

Some people collect books based on subjects or time periods. Others collect more on the basis of quality. And then, there are people who collect in quantity, a type of collecting that generally req...

Rare Book Hub: at 21

It has been an extraordinary privilege to play a part in the growth and development of the market for collectible paper over these past 21 years.  A field that has been resolutely transitioning ove...

Bemelmans' Mock-up of Madeline from Kislak Collection brings $190,500 at July Sotheby’s Auction

A 46-page mock up of children’s classic Madeline by artist-illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans created ca. 1938-39 brought $190,500 (including the buyer’s premium) in a July auction at Sotheby’s, substant...

Dominic Winter Auctioneers to auction Christopher Foley Library from Beeleigh Abbey

10,000 books and other items from theLibrary of the late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey in Essex will be auctioned by Dominic Winter Auctioneers of Cirencester in two sales in September 2023 a...

Owen Gingerich, Known for His Obsessive Pursuit of One Book, has Died at Age 93

Professor, astronomer, sleuth and author Owen Gingerich died earlier this year at the age of 93. Gingerich will long be remembered for his obsessive pursuit of knowledge about one particular book, ...

First time items at Old World Auctions' September sale

Old World Auctions’ September sale features several items that have never before been offered at auction. The online auction runs through 10 p.m. Eastern on September 13. The first of these rare i...

Fourth Stolen Columbus Letter Returned to Italian Library

Sometime between 1985 and 1988, a copy of the most important document of the New World disappeared from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Marciana or St. Mark's National Library) in Venice, Italy....

Fake Books – A Popular Alternative to the Real Thing

We have some good news and some bad news. Fake books have evidently become quite popular today, sufficiently so that several companies now are making and selling them. This fits in with the trend o...

Robert Caro - Slow Writing Takes Time: Big Bios on Robert Moses & LBJ Explore Getting & Using Power

I’m one of the legion of Robert Caro fans. Caro, now 87, is the former Newsday reporter, who made a lifetime project writing about the acquisition and perpetuation of power using biographies of Rob...

Swann Announces New Specialists for Illustration Art & LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History Departments

New York—The start of the fall 2023 season at Swann Galleries brings two new specialists for the house: Corey Serrant joins Swann as the associate director of LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture History,...

Who Printed America's First Currency? Benjamin Franklin, of course, but How Did He Stop Counterfeiters?

This website is all about printed paper, yet we rarely discuss the most valuable printed paper of all – currency. It is the only type of paper with a stated value. If you were asked to name an inge...

Three New Catalogues Reviewed This Month

For September we review three new booksellers catalogues. Maggs Bros. Ltd. features voyages travel, and some more too. Michael D. Heaston Rare Books and Manuscripts offers a selection of Americana...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Gonnelli
    Auction 51
    Antique prints, paintings and maps
    May 14st 2024
    Gonnelli: Leonard Bramer, The descent from the cross, 1634. Starting price 3200€
    Gonnelli: Gustav Hjalmar de Morner Karel, Rome’s Carnival, 1820. Starting price 1000€
    Gonnelli: Various Authors, Mater Dolorosa, 1700. Starting price 200€
    Gonnelli: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carcere Oscura, 1790. Starting price 180€
    Gonnelli: Jan Brueghel, Marine fauna view, 1620 ca. Starting price 28000€
    Gonnelli: Ippolito Scarsella, Mary and Christ with Sant Rocco and Arch-Angel Michele,1615. Starting price 8000€
    Gonnelli: Hans Sebald Beham, Adam and Eve, 1543. Starting price 600€
    Gonnelli: Francesco Burani, Baccanale, 1630. Starting Price 280€
    Gonnelli: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Plance from Ventiquattr’ore, 1675. Starting price 800€
    Gonnelli: Giuseppe Angeli, Livorno’s Plan, 1793. Starting price 240€
    Gonnelli: XIV Century Artist, Capital “N” letter, 1350 ca. Starting price 340€
  • 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
  • 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

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