Craig, Edward Gordon. Gordon Craig’s Book of Penny Toys. London: Published at the Sign of the Rose, Hackbridge, Surrey, 1899.

First edition. Large 4to, Not paginated. Illustrated boards with white buckram spine and printed paper spine label. Light wear to edges of boards, spine a bit darkened, two internal tears have been professionally repaired, very good copy.

Of the total edition of 550 copies of this, Craig’s first book, 250 were burned by the author (according to his handwritten addendum to the colophon on the rear cover of this copy), 50 were not colored, and the remaining 250 were colored by hand and sold or given away. This is one of the hand-colored copies, number 179. The book has always been scarce. This copy was discovered by the author/illustrator’s daughter Nelly in a used book shop in Hampstead in 1945. On the front pastedown is a nicely decorative ink inscription in red to Nelly from her father. In addition, other items have been preserved loosely inserted: a hand-colored copy of a bookplate by Craig, a hand-lettered title label, a piece of spine-buckram with printed label affixed, a loose print of the rocking-horse “Phoebus,” possibly from its appearance in a magazine, and an extra gathering printing Craig’s introduction to the book, titled “Words” On the front pastedown, above Craig’s inscription, Nelly Craig has written out a brief account of her acquisition of the book in pencil; another note in the hand of her mother indicates that a copy was offered by a Bloomsbury bookseller for 7/10 in 1928.

The book is entirely charming: Craig’s personal paean to the wooden toy, constructed out of verses and bold illustrations of many examples, and printed on a heavy paper ordinarily used for the manufacture of sugar bags for grocers. This copy, originally discovered in rather rough condition, has undergone expert restoration by James Brockman. A rare and lovely book with a unique and intimate family association. $26,500

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1892–1973). Autograph Letters Signed. Tolkien was a fantasy writer best remembered for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He fought in World War I, then was an academic who taught at Oxford.

Autograph letter signed. One page. 5.25 by 6.75 inches. March 7th, 1956. Oxford. An autograph letter signed “J.R.R. Tolkien” on his personal letterhead. He wrote to Robert Durden of San Francisco: “Dear Mr. Durden, Thank you very much for your generous and appreciative letter. Especially your expressions of ‘delight’. The ‘appendices’, much compressed from the subsidiary material I collected in my effort to impart (literary) reality to the tale, were intended to mark an end—at the ‘modern’ end. But it is probable that I shall now be able to publish the earlier legends, written first, of the First and Second Ages, though they will not have the attraction of containing any allusion to Hobbits. Yours sincerely J.R.R. Tolkien”. This was penned just a few months after The Return of the King, the third volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was released. The Return of the King contained over one hundred pages of appendices, as Tolkien refers to. Tolkien worked on The Silmarillion up to his death, and that dealt with the earlier ages of Middle Earth. It was published posthumously. The letter has a horizontal mailing fold that affects nothing and the original envelope in Tolkien’s distinctive handwriting is included. $10,000

Cube, Johann. Gart der Gesuntheit. Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 1485.

Folio. (27,5x20,5 cm.). Rebound recently in a fine pastiche of full brown morocco with 3 broad raised bands on back, rectangular blindtoolings to covers imitating a Renaissance binding. 342 leaves of 359. No signatures and leaves unnumbered. All lacking leaves supplied in facsimile and toned to age. With 378 (plants 357, animals 11) wood-cuts in the text (full to one-third page) in full original handcolouring. 4 ms. leaves in old hand bound in (indexes and entries). A few leaves with inkstains. 4 leaves torn with some loss (supplied in facsimile). Some scattered marginalia in ink in at least 3 different old hands. Some finger-soiling to lower right corners, some, but not many, leaves with dampstains to upper margin. Some scattered brownspots, a few other smaller paper-repairs and 5 leaves with a small hole. The hand-colouring well preserved; printed on well preserved thick paper.

The extremely scarce first edition of Gart der Gesunheit, a truly remarkable book, not only in the sense of its content as “a landmark in the history of botanical illustration” (Hunt), but also due to its position in the history of printing. It was produced by Gutenberg’s head assistant (Meisterschüler), Peter Schoeffer, in Mainz on the Gutenberg premises which were taken over by Schoeffer and Fust. The book has been called the most important medieval work on natural history with illustrations, and it is the first herbal at all written and printed in the vernacular. Claus Nissen (in BBI) describes the publication of it as a decisive turning point in botanical illustration. Gart der Gesunheit takes up a unique position in the family of herbals or hortus, which in the fifteenth century is not a botanical treatise, but a medical book intended for both laypeople and physicians. It calls attention to the valuable herbs free to all, and similarly also to remedies derived from animals and minerals, a popular medicine book but in no way popular in the modern sense, as it was also used in the technical education at the time.

The prototype of the hortus-family is Herbarius (Latin), also published by Schoeffer in 1484, the Gart, though based on Herbarius “is a new creation in the vernacular, distinguished by original concepts, both textually and artistically, while the hortus proper, combining both the virtues and vices of the former, is more ambitious in scope, more complex because of added material—an elaboration of the Herbarius, but less lucid and original than the Gart der Gesundheit” (Klebs). The Gart inspired several contemporary printing presses immediately and gave rise to at least fourteen other incunabula editions in Latin. The Gart der Gesundheit must not be confused with Schoeffer’s Herbarius Latinus of 1484, although it is based on this, as the Gart is not a translation from this, but a much enlarged work, nearly twice in proportion, in folio, not in quarto and with new illustrations. Many of the woodcuts of the Gart are evidently made from drawings of living plants and most of the illustrations are full page. Bernard Reuwich of Utrecht is thought to have made 65 of the cuts, and these 65 cuts were the first faithful renditions of plants in a printed book, and showed some Middle-Eastern plants for the first time. These large cuts were never reprinted!

The Strawberry, cultivated during the 15th century, is here depicted for the first time (fol. 160). Schoeffer worked with Gutenberg on the 42-line Bible from around 1452, and he finished the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455, after he and Fust had taken over the Gutenberg offices, following the printer’s bankruptcy. From 1468, Schoeffer was the only owner of the business. For the Gart, Schoeffer invented a new type face, which he later added to his repertoire, particularly suitable as a German text type.

Schoeffer is one of the greatest in the history of printing and he was Europe’s first broadly successful printer of books. “In Dr. Klebs opinion, the Gart der Gesundheit was a landmark in the history of botanical illustration, one which marked perhaps the greatest single step ever made in that art; its delineations of plants, breaking away from the traditional stylized woodcut, were not only unsurpassed, but unequalled for nearly half a century.” (Jane Quinby in the note to Hunt No. 5). Wilfrid Blunt (in The Art of Botanical Illustration) calls it the “only botanical incunabulum of real importance.” No more than a handful of copies of this work has survived in public libraries. Three complete copies are recorded (Library of Congress, New York Botanical Garden Library, and only one in Europe: Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg). The 2 copies in The British Library and in Basel/Bern are both incomplete.

Hain *8948 - Garrison & Morton No 95 - Nissen BBI No 2267 - Hunt Botanical Collection No 5 - Klebs, Incunabula Scientifica et Medica: 507.1 - Pritzel: 10823. - Brunet III p. 343 (wrongly describes it as a translation from the Latin Herbarius). $120,000.

Kuelemans, John Gerard. Original Watercolors for Henry Eeles Dresser’s A Monograph of the Meropidae, or Family of the Bee-Eaters.

Large Folio (470 x 390mm), 1884-1886. Bound for the Author in a Fine Binding of Full Red Morocco Gilt, Dresser’s Gilt Crest and Gilt Title ‘Monograph of Meropidae Originals of Plates by J.G.Keulemans’ held within elaborate Floral Gilt Frame on the Upper-Cover,Inner Dentelles Gilt. Full Set of Thirty-Four Watercolors All Signed By J. G. Keulemans, Painted on Card and set within Window-Mounts, bound as Stout Folio, all edges gilt.

The Meropidae was published by the author in five parts between 1884 and 1886. The descriptive text of 144pp by Dresser also included introductory notes by Frank E.Beddard mainly on the anatomy of the species.

An important monograph, The Meropidae is one of three major monographs published by Dresser. The others are History of the Birds of Europe (1871–96), still the largest and most complete work on this subject, and A Monograph of the Coraciidae (1893). All have illustrations by Keulemans.

Dresser was also the author of over 100 scientific papers on birds, mostly concerned with geographical distribution and new species. His “Manual of Palaearctic Birds” (1902) was an important contribution to the delimitation of the ranges of Palaearctic birds.

The artist of these fine watercolors, Johannes Gerardus Keulemans (1842-1912), began his career as a taxidermist providing stuffed birds to the State Museum of Natural History at Leiden. The Director of that Museum encouraged Keulemans to pursue his love of natural history, where he obtained a scientific appointment after an expedition to West Africa in 1865-66.His accomplishments in illustration came to the notice of Richard Bowdler Sharpe, later a Director of the British Museum, who encouraged him to move to England. He quickly achieved wide recognition and established himself as the most popular bird artist of the late Victorian period. He regularly provided illustrations for The Ibis and The Proceedings of the Zoological Society. He illustrated many important bird books as well as those by Dresser, including Buller’s A History of the Birds of New Zealand (1873), Shelley’s Monograph of the Sun-Birds (1876-80), William Vincent Legge’s Birds of Ceylon (1880), Daniel Giraud Elliot’s Monograph of the Hornbills (1887-1892), Richard Bowdler Sharpe’s Monograph on Kingfishers (1868-1871), Henry Seebohm’s Monograph on Thrushes (1902), Osbert Salvin’s Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879-1904). Keulemans has painted remarkable pictures of extinct birds, like the Choiseul Crested Pigeon, Kangaroo Island Emu, Huia, Stephens Island Wren, Hawaii Oo, Hawaii Mamo, Oahu Oo, Guadalupe Petrel, and the Laughing Owl. All these paintings can be seen in the American Museum of Natural History in New York

A leading figure in ornithological circles, Henry Eeles Dresser was elected as a Member of the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1865 and served as its secretary from 1882 to 1888. He was also a member and fellow of the Linnean and Zoological societies of London and an honorary fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He was a close friend of Professor Alfred Newton, Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford and of Sir Alfred Russel Wallace and he knew all of the leading ornithologists of the day. He was particularly well-known to European, American and Russian ornithologists. He worked with Alfred Newton on the development of a close time for British birds when they could not be hunted during the 1860s, an early part of the development of the bird conservation movement. In spite of his prominence as an ornithologist, this activity had to come second to his business which, from 1870 until 1910, was in the iron business, with premises at 110 Cannon Street in The City.

Dresser left England in 1912 in order to live in Cannes for the benefit of his health; he died in Monte Carlo. His collection of birds had been in the Manchester Museum, part of The University of Manchester, since 1899 and was purchased for the museum by JP Thomasson (a Bolton businessman). Dresser’s egg collection was acquired by the museum in 1912. The museum also contains some of Dresser’s correspondence and diaries.

The Bee-Eaters are a group of near passerine birds in the family Meropidae. Most species are found in Africa but others occur in southern Europe, Madagascar, Australia and New Guinea. They are characterized by richly colored plumage, slender bodies and usually elongated central tail feathers. All are colorful and have long downturned bills and pointed wings, which give them a swallow-like appearance when seen from afar.

These watercolors for the Meropidae are perhaps the finest to exist and exhibit some of Keuleman’s best work at the peak of his career. This is a unique and splendid volume of watercolors of one of the last of the great folio works on birds.

For further information on the published work see:Fine Bird Books p.72;Keulemans & Coldewey,Feathers to Brush;Zimmer,p.178;Nissen 269;Anker p.56.

$250,000

[The Earliest Italian Flap Anatomy] NICOLINI DA SABBIO, Giovanni Antonio] Viscerum, hoc est interiorum corporis humani partium, viva delineatio. Venice, Giovanni Antonio Nicolini da Sabbio, a spese di Giovanni Battista Pederzani, 1539) Broadside [44.3 x 32.5 cm overall, 29.2 x 15.2 cm woodcut] with 6 flaps.

Very rare first edition of this woodcut anatomy fugitive sheet showing a female figure, retaining six of its seven possible flaps - more than any other known copy of this work. Published in Venice by Gianantonio dei Nicolini da Sabbio in 1539, this is the earliest Italian printed flap anatomy. Only one anatomical broadside with flaps bears an even earlier date-a single sheet of a woman produced in 1538 by the German artist and printer Heinrich Vogtherr the Elder. Due to the delicacy of the flaps revealing successive layers of the human anatomy, and the robust use they would have been put through, anatomy broadsides of this kind are rarely found in such a state of preservation.

$45,000

[Vietnam War] Seventy-seven Vietnamese Village Maps Coded to Identify Political Sympathies of Residents. [Vietnam]: n.d. [probably late 1960s].

77 colored maps. Unbound. Most sheets are 32cm. x 49cm. (a few smaller); actual map-size ranges from 23 x 44cm. to 32 x 46cm. Some wrinkling, minor edge-tears, corner-creasing, and light soiling. 44 maps have tracing-paper overlays stapled to one side; 33 have staple-holes where such overlays have been detached; most, if not all, of these detached overlays (rolled together) are included. Each map has been folded once across the middle. Very Good. Vietnamese text, with some English translation. Maps show village and inter-family boundaries, individual houses, churches, temples, schools, roads, trails, bridges and culverts, graveyards, ditches and other waterways, wells, hills, etc. English translations are pencilled in on legends, and in some cases on the maps proper. Through a system of colored marks, the overlays indicate the established or suspected political sympathies of the inhabitants of specific houses. Included are maps of 3 villages in Binh-Son district; 1 village in Binh-Thang district; 6 villages in Duc-Pho district; 18 villages in Mo-Duc district; 14 villages and 1 resettlement-camp in Nghia-Hanh district; 10 villages and 1 resettlement-camp in Son-Tinh district; 15 villages and 1 resettlement-camp in Tu-Nghia district; and 3 other villages (districts not specified). Two large villages are covered by 3 maps each. These detailed maps of Vietnamese villages and resettlement-camps were probably prepared for the U.S. (or South Vietnamese) Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. While the exact scale is indeterminable, and may vary from map to map, it seems in most cases to be between 1:1000 and 1:2000. One can’t help wondering how accurately this coding identified actual political sympathies.

$7,500

Vieira da Silva, Maria Elena and Pierre Guéguen. Kô et Kô. Les Deux Esquimaux. Paris: Aux Editions Jeanne Bucher, (1933).

Large oblong 4to (34 by 26 cm). Title, 12 color gouache plates, and 2 loose color gouache plates of cut-outs. Cloth backed, original pochoir color pictorial front board by Vieira da Silva. The painter lights up her first personal exhibition at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher with the presentation of the most beautiful book for children. Limited edition of 300 copies. $12,000

[Arctic Submarines]. Anshutz-Kaempfe, [ H ]. Das Unterseeboot im Dienste der Polar-Forschung. Kiel, L Handorrf, [1901?], 8vo., orig.publisher’s dec. cloth.

First Edition. Rare. Absent from OCLC. A very good copy; loose in casing.

An intriguing pamphlet suggesting the use of submarines to explore the polar ice caps. The author recommended the use of submarines as a means of avoiding being frozen into the ice. Boats could submerge beneath the ice and travel to the next open spot in the seas. The author also addresses various technical issues of keeping the submarine seaworthy and coping with undersea problems, e.g., re-cycling the air. A prescient work. OCLC does list one copy of what presumably is the contents of this pamphlet given as a speech in Vienna before the Royal Geo. Soc. dated 1902.

$975

*Wall o’ Vellum*. Among other treats PRBM's booth will feature a gathering of vellum-bound books from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. There will be odd decorative volumes and significant masterworks, 16mos to folios.

$200 to $2,000

Ketham, Johannes de. Fasciculus Medicine. (Colophon:) Impressum

Venetiis [Venice]: per Joannem Gregorium de Gregoriis fratres, 28th March

1500.]

Small folio (298 x 214 mm.), 34 leaves. With 10 full-page woodcuts, all vividly colored in an early hand, large and small initial letters all colored, text in double columns, 64 lines, faintly ruled in red throughout. First leaf rehinged and tear in fore-edge margin carefully restored, a few other minor marginal repairs, small (3mm.) wormhole in text of last 17 leaves, one or two other tiny pin-prick wormholes, ruled border of five woodcuts just shaved, some small stains in fore-edge margin. Modern maroon morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, slipcase.

Third Latin edition (the third of four Latin incunable editions), and a beautiful, most unusual, colored copy, of the first printed medical book to be illustrated with realistic figures, in particular, anatomical illustrations.

The Fasciculus Medicinae is a collection of medical texts, some medieval, first printed in 1491. In the Italian translation of 1493, it underwent changes sufficiently significant to make it into what Dr. Singer has called the first modern medical book imbued with humanist spirit ‹perhaps a rather ambitious statement (PMM). The woodcuts were dramatically improved, and it contained additional illustrations and, most notably, the anatomical text of Mundinus. The present edition contains seven treatises, on urology, flebotomy, surgery, gynæcology, epidemiology (the Consilium propeste evitanda of PETRUS DE TUSSIGNANO), anatomy (the Anathomia of MUNDINUS), and paediatrics (the De egritidinibus puerorum of RHAZES, included for the first time).

Of the ten woodcuts in this edition, the first eight appeared in the 1493 edition, one (depicting the sick room of a man with the plague) is a close copy from that edition, and another (the dissection scene) is an almost identical copy from the 1495 edition. Two of the cuts are urological, one astrological, one medical, one is the often repeated Œwound man?, and one a bloodletting man. One shows the female internal organs, and the cut on the first page in the book shows Petrus de Montagnana teaching. These illustrations are of quite extraordinary quality, especially bearing in mind that they had no precedent in a medical book. They were designed by an artist of the first rank, close to the school of Gentile Bellini, and give the book an interest far beyond the world of medicine.

The so-called author was Johannes von Kirchheim, to whom the work was in all probability attributed by its Italian printers, who in doing so corrupted his name to Ketham. Kirchheim, born in Swabia, was professor of medicine in Vienna in about 1460. There were 14 printed editions up to 1523, ?but the influence of the book, particularly through its illustrations, long outlived them? (PMM). Copies are found with one or two of the woodcuts colored, but a copy that is colored throughout is most unusual.

Klebs 573.3. Goff K-15. BMC, V, 351. Choulant pp. 115–122.

Herrlinger pp. 28–29 & 65–66. See G&M 363, Printing and the Mind of Man 36,

Stillwell, The Awakening Interest in Science, III 436 and IV 667 (1491

edition).

£49,500 (about $97,500)

[Emblem Book]. Whitney, Geffrey. A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises, for the Most Parte Gathered Out of Sundrie Writers, Englished and Moralized. (Leyden: Christopher Plantin by Francis Raphelengius, 1586) 225 x 167 mm. (8 3/4 x 6 1/2”).

First printing. Attractive 19th century brown crushed morocco, gilt. With 248 woodcut emblems within typographical borders. The really excellent Landwehr copy of the first printing of the very rare first emblem book printed in English.

$55,000

Tallis, John. New York. [London, 1851], 35 by 52 centimeters. Colored steel-plate map.

One of the most sought-after maps from the Illustrated Atlas ... by John Tallis that was published to coincide with the Great Exhibition of 1851. This detailed map was drawn and engraved by John Rapkin with illustrations by H.Winkles of New York from Williamsburgh, the Narrows from Fort Hamilton, a New York Steamer, Brooklyn, City Hall and the Custom House. Manhattan Island occupies central position and the street mapping extends as far as 41st Street. The railroads at this time are shown along with the many ferry crossings and even individual packets and docks. A wonderful snapshot of the bustling city at this time. £1,200 (about $2,400)