Own a piece of New York's famous restaurant, Elaine's, by bidding this Tuesday at Doyle NY's auction of the estate of Elaine Kaufman. There are 250 lots of books, art, and restaurant memorabilia, such as the bar stools, barware, and yes, the entire table-and-chair set of Table One (seen above; estimate $400-$600). Regulars will recognize some items, while others were privately held in Kaufman's penthouse apartment.

Kaufman's art collection is impressive. The Andy Warhol print seen above is a signed 1956 lithograph of a shoe and long (estimate $10,000-$15,000). There's another Warhol print, a David Hockney etching, a photographic collage by Wallace Berman, and a watercolor by Reginald Marsh. Kaufman also owned several French Art Nouveau posters; works by both Alphonse Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec are on the block.

This 59" x 48" framed poster is an enlarged dust jacket from A.E. Hotchner's Everyone Comes to Elaine's (estimate $100-$150). In books, an oversized folio of Helmut Newton's Sumo (Taschen, 1999) on a stand designed by Phillipe Starck leads the lots (estimate $3,000-$5,000). Avedon's Autobiography (estimate $150-$250) and Warhol's Exposures (estimate $800-$1200) are highlights. Then there are several lots of books, grouped by subject, such as Fashion, Food, and Hollywood, many of them inscribed, and several lots of "Signed Books" together with associated framed dust jackets. These books don't seem terribly special until you peek at the photos -- the signatures are not mere scribbled names, the inscriptions are long and personalized in many cases.

Looks like a fun auction for art collectors, book collectors, foodies, and New York-ophiles. Bon Appetit!

Catalogue Review: Up-Country Letters, #16

Well, Dear Reader, if you're a frequent follower of this blog, you will understand that I could not pass up the opportunity to review a catalogue titled Transcendentalism. Thoreau and Emerson being longtime favorites (and in that order). Coincidentally, I am just finishing Eden's Outcasts, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner about Louisa May Alcott and her father. So when Up-Country Letters Fine and Rare Books of Gardnerville, Nevada, sent this catalogue to my inbox, 'twas fate.

Oh to have the four-volume facsimile of the Transcendentalists' magazine, The Dial, together with two additional volumes of George W. Cooke's Historical and Biographical Introduction to The Dial ($200)! Another intriguing find is a typed letter signed by Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel's son, from 1901 ($90). That alone is mildly interesting, but the content is fantastic. In it, Julian is promoting P.F. Collier's "World's Greatest Literature" series, precursor to the Harvard Classics. Several autographs letters of Rev. Theodore Parker are here, of particular interest one written to Emerson introducing a minister ($900).

In September's digital issue, we featured an interview with Norman Kane. Due to popular request, we have posted the remainder of the interview on the blog in two installments. The first, covering the rest of our book related questions, appeared last week. This second and final installment primarily covers Norman's experiences in America and Europe preceding his 50+ years as an antiquarian bookman.

In Norman's own words:

I was born in 1924 during the Consulate of Quiet Cal and grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania (Delaware & Chester Counties). The first school I went to was a one-room school (although it had a 2nd floor as I remember) and one teacher. The alphabet on large printed cards went around the walls above the blackboards.

I went overseas in 1944 after an interval of various jobs. I was called up for the draft several times but was rejected for poor eyesight and worked in a shipyard, in a paper mill, and as a truck driver but the patriotic bug got me and I signed up to drive an ambulance in the (British) Eighth Army, so I was in Italy for the winter campaign up the mountain chain.

There is surely enough overlap between the book collecting world and the antiques world to make Maureen Stanton's new book, Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea-Market America, a worthy read. Having "embedded" herself with a mid-ranking antiques dealer for several years, Stanton travels to fairs big and little--from Brimfield to second-rate yard sales--seeing both the exciting and the darker sides of antiquing.

The dealer Stanton shadows, Curt Avery (a pseudonym) is a brash character, extraordinarily impressive, if a little rough around the edges. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of antiques, learned in the trenches. Stanton picked well; Avery is great fun to listen to, and viewing the business through his eyes keeps the pace of the book brisk.

A touch of Hollywood glamour comes to the Grolier Club tomorrow (September 14) for an exhibition of vintage Golden Age photography. Entitled "Silver Screen / Silver Print" the exhibition will trace the invention and development of the Hollywood glamor photograph. The exhibition will demonstrate how glamour shots were a central part of the star-making apparatus for Hollywood studios, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, when MGM boasted it had "more stars than there are in the heavens."

The exhibit will be divided into ten sections, each dedicated to a particular photographer, star, or theme. The stars with their own sections include Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Ramon Novarro, and the last great star of the studio system, Elizabeth Taylor. Photographers George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, and Ruth Harriet Louise will each have their own cases. Themes to be covered include Hollywood fashion as promoted by photography and the development of a discernible Paramount Studios house style.

"Silver Screen / Silver Print" is drawn from the collection of Grolier Club member Robert Dance and will be curated by Anne H. Hoy. The exhibition will be on display from September 14 through November 12. While the exhibition is free of charge, a fully-illustrated catalog will be available to purchase.

The Grolier Club is located at 47 East 60th Street in New York City.

Yes, it may only be Monday, but surely you are making bookish plans for next weekend, right? If you're anywhere in the NY/NJ/DE/MD/PA area, the mid-Atlantic chapter of the ABAA is hosting a mini book fair and sale at the Bookshop in Old New Castle in New Castle, Delaware.
    Thirteen ABAA booksellers have signed on to showcase their books, including Antipodean Books, Between the Covers Rare Books, Black Swan Books, Brian Cassidy Bookseller, Certain Books, Hammer Mountain Book Hall, The Kelmscott Bookshop, Bruce McKittrick Rare Books, Oak Knoll Books, the Old Bookshop of Bordentown, Willis Monie Books, Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts, and Wellread Books.
    And if that weren't enough, Lilly Library curator (and FB&C columnist) Joel Silver will be there to sign copies of the new trade edition of his Dr. Rosenbach and Mr. Lilly: Book Collecting in a Golden Age, just published by Oak Knoll.
    The fair runs from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday the 17th and is sure to be a fantastic time.

Watch and listen as artist Werner Pfeiffer constructs and discusses Out of the Sky: 9/11, his World Trade Center artist's book/ sculpture. A beautiful work. If you are in/around Princeton, NJ, next weekend, a discussion and reception with Pfeiffer will take place on Saturday, September 17, 2011, at 3:00 in the Chancellor Green Rotunda on the Princeton campus.

Catalogue Review: David M. Lesser, Fine Antiquarian Books, #119

David Lesser's catalogue is titled Rare Americana, and the subtitle is: a catalogue of significant and unusual imprints relating to America. True, true. Though if he had wanted to, he could have used a more sensational lede like: Murder! Slavery! Adultery! Disease! For the titles that popped out at me were of indelicate (and thus very interesting) subject matter.

In "murder" we have several highlights. A rare 1846 book printed in Kentucky on the Life and Trial of Dr. Abner Baker, who murdered his brother-in-law, whom Baker believed was having an affair with his "nymphomaniac" wife ($750). A little-known racial crime has its day in court with a good+ 1806 edition of Report of the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan, convicted of murdering a young man and throwing him into the Chicopee River ($600). The two were exonerated 178 years later by Gov. Dukakis, who believed them victims of anti-Irish bias. An 1801 Report of the Trial of Jason Fairbanks...for the Murder of Elizabeth Fales is another in this grouping, and there are yet more ($175).

In this month's digital issue, we published an interview profile of Norman Kane. Due to space constraints, we were forced to edit the interview down from its full length. Thanks to popular request, we are now posting the rest of the interview on the blog. In part one, we will feature the rest of Norman's answers to bookseller related questions and in part two (to be published next week) we will feature further details from Norman's interesting personal biography.

And so, without further ado:

NP: What was the first catalog you issued?

NK: A friend of mine, myself, and our wives wandered down to Arch Street in Philly where there were still a lot of businesses selling type. We bought a little hand-press with drawers and drawers of type. Some of which was pied [mixed up]. Never buy pied type! [laughs] I set to work printing a book catalog just from the stuff I'd collected up to that point. I printed up a catalog on nice stationary of surely less than 100 items and probably less than 100 copies, sent it out, and got a few orders. And that was the first catalog.

Next week Heritage Auctions will sell the Jerry Weist Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy Art and Books. Fans of Wells, Lovecraft, Asimov, Clarke, Dick -- rejoice! This incredibly broad and deep collection has complete runs from nearly every publisher in the genre, high-grade pulp magazines, comic books, sci-fi movie posters, and early fanzines.

This All-Story from October 1912 is a highly coveted item, as it is the first appearance of Tarzan. Edgar Rice Burroughs had only published one story prior to this one, and that under an pseudonym. The cover was designed by Clinton Pettee. The estimate of $8,000-$12,000 reflects some minor condition issues.

This framed and signed oil on board by Frank Frazetta graced the cover of Ray Bradbury's 1966 paperback Tomorrow Midnight. Franzetta is considered "the greatest fantasy artist of all time." The estimate is $40,000-$60,000.

Weist, who died earlier this year, was the type of enthusiastic, active collector who sought not only books and art, but relationships with authors, artists, and other collectors. In HA's newsletter, rare books manager Joe Fay described a unique feature on many of Weist's books -- when Weist asked authors to sign books for him, he asked that they draw an outline of their hand and then sign inside the outline.

This first edition of Philip K. Dick's Confessions of a Crap Artist (1975) shows the unique signature. So says the catalogue: "Interestingly, Dick was the only author to question Jerry Weist's habit of asking authors to sign books with their handprints. True to form, Dick thought it was a government conspiracy." The estimate is $400-$600, although it looks like the online bidding has already pushed it to $2,200 with five more days to go.

The auction will be held on Sept. 12 in Beverly Hills, CA. The full catalogue is here: http://historical.ha.com/common/auction/catalog.php?SaleNo=606.

Images courtesy of Heritage Auctions.