• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - September - 2020 Issue

Pacific Travels, Australia, and More from Hordern House

Hordern House Rare Books, Manuscripts, Paintings has released a new catalogue. It is without title or written description, but much of what can be found is related to the home continent of this Sydney bookseller, along with numerous Pacific voyages. However, Australia and Pacific items are not an exclusive. They have unrelated books that somehow made it to this far off land along the way. Books about Italian artists and architects, or Oxford University, are not Australian items, but they are to be found here, so there really is no limitation. Here are a few of the items we found in this latest selection.

 

We will begin with one of those non-Australian or Pacific items. There wasn't much going on down there in 1744-1746 when these volumes were published. Everyone knows Samuel Johnson for his incredible dictionary, and the fawning biography of him by his disciple, James Boswell. A decade before any of that, he was editing a collection of pamphlets and smaller format items that had been in the collection of the Second Earl of Oxford, Edward Harley. Thomas Osborne had purchased this large collection from the now late Second Earl or his estate and came up with the idea of cataloguing this vast trove of information. Johnson, in his employ at the time, was asked to take on this task. Johnson suggested going one better and publishing it all, which Osborne proceeded to do. Johnson was assigned the job of editor. The title is The Harleian Miscellany: Or, a Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts... and the collection takes up eight volumes. Item 18. Priced at AU $5,850 (Australian dollars, or approximately US $4,185 in U.S. currency).

 

There is nothing unusual about flying to Australia... unless the year is 1781. This precedes even balloon flight by a couple of years and those people were hardly journeying all the way to Australia. This work is from the imagination of Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne. He was both quite original and controversial. The title is La Découverte Australe par un Homme-Volant... (the southern discovery by a flying man). These men and women travelled on a device consisting of large silk wings and an umbrella or parachute-like device. Don't try this yourself. They discover all sorts of creatures in Australia, mainly beings that are a mixture of humans and other animals. This book is something of a mixture itself, of early science fiction and Utopian literature. The illustrations are even more spectacular than the writing. Restif had a lowly reputation, considered to be a pornographer in his day, nicknamed “the Rousseau of the gutter.” It can be observed that while these people had fantastic wings and umbrellas, few of them had clothes. It comes in four volumes and the latter part of the fourth volume was so controversial that most copies are lacking this part. Item 32 is rare in being a complete and uncensored copy. AU $44,000 (US $31,495).

 

Next we have a book that took a long time to come to press. Sir Joseph Banks was the naturalist on Capt. James Cook's first voyage. They sailed along much of Australia's coastline. On the journey, Banks made hundreds of sketches of the plants he discovered, all new to Europeans. They returned in 1771, and Banks was to accompany Cook on his second voyage, but a dispute with the Admiralty resulted in his not going. However, he had much to do back home. He began working on a massive compendium of the botanical specimens he observed, hiring five artists to prepare the illustrations from his sketches. Meanwhile, he brought in Daniel Solander, a Swedish naturalist who also travelled on Cook's first voyage, to prepare the text. They created 743 engravings on copper plants of the illustrations, the project taking from 1772 to 1784 to complete. However, for various reasons, Banks delayed publication. The delays continued to 1820, when he died, his magnum opus unpublished. Banks bequeathed the plates and text to the British museum, which put them in storage for 160 years. Finally, someone dug them out and the process of publishing the work began. The British Museum brought in Editions Alecto to publish the work, and through the next ten years, 1980-1990, the 35 parts and 743 engravings, taken from almost a ton of copper plates, was finally completed. Editions Alecto figured out how to add color to what was originally black and white illustrations. The plants illustrated came from Australia and New Zealand, but also other Cook stopovers, including Brazil and several Pacific islands. This complete set was one retained by the publisher. Item 4. AU $94,500 (US $67,640).

 

This is described by Hordern House as “the great Australian colourplate book.” The title is Views in Australia or New South Wales, & Van Diemen's Land Delineated... The artist was Joseph Lycett, an Englishman who came to Australia in 1814 as so many others, a prisoner on a convict ship. However, unlike the average convict, he had notable artistic skills. Indeed, that had been his downfall in England. He put his artistic skills to use forging bank notes. He became a clerk for the police office, but by 1815, he was back to his old misdeeds, forging bank notes. He was imprisoned at Newcastle, but his talents got him better treatment, having come to the attention of the superintendent. Some of his paintings were given to the Governor, who sent some on to Earl Bathurst, Secretary of the Colonies, back in England. It is believed that this is what led to his receiving a full pardon. He returned to England a free man in 1822 whereupon he began work on this book. It documents some of the earliest views of Australia, its architecture and scenery. The book was published in 1825. It appears not to have been a great success at the time and it is reported that Lycett returned to the type of art he knew best, forging bank notes, was caught again, slit his throat in a suicide attempt, and later died from his wound without fully recovering in 1828. Item 23. AU $75,000 (US $53,682).

 

Item 6 is Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait, to co-operate with the Polar Expeditions...in the Years 1825, 26, 27, 28. Frederick Beechey was placed in command of HMS Blossom on a mission to meet up with William Parry and John Franklin in the Arctic Ocean. Parry was sailing west from the Atlantic, Beechey east from the Pacific, while Franklin travelled overland, reaching the ocean via the Mackenzie River. Parry was forced back when his ship was damaged in ice, of which Beechey was informed, but he was still looking for Franklin. Unfortunately, they missed each other by a relatively short distance north of Alaska. While that was the main thrust of Beechey's voyage, he also visited Hawaii and several Pacific Islands, where the climate was undoubtedly more hospitable. Of particular note, he stopped at Pitcairn Island and met John Adams, the last survivor of the mutiny on the Bounty. Beechey recounts that story and what happened to the mutineers. AU $12,850 (US $9,197).

 

Hordern House may be reached at [+61] (02) 9356 4411 or rare@hordern.com. Their website is found at www.hordern.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • 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
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    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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