“Keeping time, time, time,” as Edgar Allan Poe writes in his poem, “The Bells,” preoccupied the author’s short life, which makes the object headed to auction next month in New York all the more fascinating: his pocket watch. Made of 18-karat gold, the open-face pocket watch is engraved in French, “Echappement A Cylindre En – Aiguilley – Edgar A. Poe – Pierre Huit Trous En Rubis.”

Poe was notoriously cash-strapped, but, according to Christie’s, his brief success in Philadelphia as an editor at Graham’s Magazine in 1841-42 would have offered him the wherewithal to purchase such an item. Unfortunately, the creditors soon came calling, and it appears that he used the watch as collateral or payment to a tailor named J. W. Albright. The auction catalogue contains a detailed description of the relic’s provenance of private ownership. 

The timepiece is estimated to reach $80,000-120,000. One can’t help but wonder if the preeminent Poe collector Susan Jaffe Tane, who purchased Poe’s engraved engagement ring in 2012 for $80,000 and subsequently put it on display at the Grolier Club, is interested.

As the Christie’s cataloguer notes, “It is difficult to envision a literary artifact more evocative of Poe's work than his personal pocket watch, chiming every quarter hour. Time itself is, of course, a recurring motif across his body of work, and clocks and watches in various incarnations appear as literal mechanical instruments, as place-names or titles, and as looming abstractions taunting the reader.“

Charles Dickens was one of the first global literary superstars who finessed his personal brand with a careful eye on an international reading public – indeed, a tenth of the books in his private library are related to travel. The fascinating Global Dickens: For Every Nation Upon Earth, now running at the Dickens Museum in London, showcases this obsession and the reach of his works with books, printed ephemera, and other intriguing objects dispersed throughout virtually all the rooms and floors of Dickens’ former home.

As some readers may recall, we published a feature last autumn called “Booksellers’ Best,” an illustrated listing of a dozen rare books and manuscripts that antiquarian booksellers offered up as their most noteworthy sales of the year. This year, we’ll be doing the same thing, with one small twist: two categories, Under $500 and Over $500. In both, we’re looking for entries that present unique stories. Last year we highlighted a Standing Rock artist’s book; a ten-volume, extra illustrated copy of John Muir’s writings; and perhaps my favorite of the bunch, a 547-year-old book, printed by the famous French printer and type designer Nicolas Jenson, with “an almost unbroken, and somewhat distinguished, provenance,” sold by Blackwell’s Rare Books in Oxford (pictured above).

So booksellers: we invite you to submit information on the most unique or interesting book or manuscript you've sold over the last twelve months. Fine Books staff will choose a selection of submissions to be featured in the upcoming fall issue of Fine Books & Collections magazine.

To submit your book for consideration please email me (rebecca dot barry at finebooksmagazine.com) with the title, author, price, details about what makes the item special, and a high-resolution image by June 5.

From a quiet auction week to one that's absolutely jam-packed! First, we've got three sales on Tuesday, May 14:

• At Sotheby's London, Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History, in 280 lots. A large folio volume of hand-colored engravings by Gabriel Huquier (~1745) is estimated at £100,000–150,000. Christian Snouk Hurgronje's own four-volume copy of his books and portfolios of photographs of Mecca (1889) rates an £80,000–120,000 estimate. A lovely copy of the 1676 edition of John Speed's atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain is estimated at £75,000–90,000.
• Swann Galleries sells 19th & 20th Century Literature, in 273 lots. A rare presentation copy of Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis (1934), signed by Graham to Wall Street trader Melbourne S. Moyer rated the top estimate, at $18,000–25,000. A trio of books are each estimated at $12,000–18,000: a first impression of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, a presentation copy of Fleming's Goldfinger inscribed to golfer Henry Cotton, and a copy of the first American edition of The Phantom of the Opera in the very uncommon dust jacket.
• - Historical Manuscripts at Heritage Auctions, in 280 lots. A 1793 patent, one of just seven known examples signed by both Washington and Jefferson, has an opening bid of $60,000. A signed Lincoln CDV opens at $40,000, and some manuscript notes by Jefferson relating to a land dispute has a $40,000 reserve. Other lots that caught my eye in this one include a journal and letters written by Civil War soldier George G. Thwing of the 30th Massachusetts Infantry (opening at $5,000) and a 1751 survey description and plat map by George Washington (opening at $10,000; pictured above).

On Wednesday, May 15, Dominic Winter Auctioneers holds a 566-lot sale of Printed Maps, Books, Travel, Exploration, Natural History, Prints, Archaeology & Gastronomy. Most lots are in the three- to four-figure range, but a really beautiful 1540 Paris world map could sell for £20,000–30,000.

Also on Wednesday, University Archives sells Declaration Signers, Autographs, Signed Books & Relics, in 292 lots. An 1863 Lincoln letter to the Secretary of War about the Illinois Central Railroad rates the top estimate, at $30,000–50,000. An 1805 letter from Thomas Paine to Hartford newspaper publisher Elisha Babcock, asking for information about potential monarchist sentiments among New England Federalists, could sell for $30,000–35,000.

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, May 17, Rare Golf Books & Memorabilia, in 471 lots. A first edition of the 1891 publication The Duffers' Golf Club Papers, in original wrappers, is estimated at $15,000–25,000. An 1881 first edition of Robert Forgan's The Golfer's Handbook could sell for $12,000–18,000. One of fifty large-paper copies of Wethered and Simpon's The Architectural Side of Golf, signed by both authors, rates an estimate of $15,000–18,000. Lots 387–471 are being sold without reserve.

Skinner Inc.'s 293-lot online sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts also ends on Thursday. The top estimate there, at $30,000–50,000, is shared between a first edition of Newton's Opticks (1704) from the collection of Dr. Adrian Pollock and a 1776 Massachusetts broadside proclamation docketed "to the Town Clerk of Danvers."

Time to check in with the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the University of Texas at Austin and take a peek at what’s on display in the rotating Stories to Tell exhibition.

Over 150 boxes of Arthur Miller’s papers have sat uncatalogued storage at the HRC since the 1960s. Now, after the purchase of another 8,000 items from the playwright’s estate (and a public tug-of-war between Yale and Texas for those pieces), a teasingly tiny selection from Miller’s massive archive are on view. One item hails from Miller’s three-volume FBI file, which Miller received after filing a FOIA request in 1985. The dossier reveals that the government had a tail on the author of Death of a Salesman for at least twenty years, starting in the mid-1940s. One of the redacted forms indicates that in November 1942 “the subject was employed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a ship fitter trainee. However, by letter dated February 28, 1943, the subject advised his Local Board that he was again engaged in playwriting.”

Literary tourism is big business. While new book festivals continue to spring up, recent research from the VisitEngland tourist board indicated that more than half of British holidaymakers would visit a literary attraction on vacation. Another increasingly popular way of combining books with holidays is to visit one of the dozens of small villages and towns around the world devoted to bookselling.

Hay-on-Wye in Wales is the best known of these, but I feature all the others in my book, Book Towns (Frances Lincoln, 2018). The most common response from readers to the book has been that they are now considering including a visit to one of these towns on a future holiday (or indeed making a tour of several). Although not officially a member of the International Association of Book Towns, I included the district of Jimbocho in Tokyo in a separate section of the book devoted to ‘literary paradises’ because it is home to around 200 bookshops, publishers, and related clubs and societies, many with an emphasis on rare and secondhand titles.

The area has been developing its current specialism over the last 100 years—if you visit then look out for the two characters 書店 which mean 'Shoten' or bookstore—and plenty offer such a large stock that it spills out onto tables on the pavement outside their stores.  

Since the epic Battle of Winterfell episode in the latest season of Game of Thrones aired on HBO two weeks ago, the Cushing Library at Texas A & M University has seen its own horde lining up outside its walls: fans excited to see a particular dagger that plays a key part in the episode. (No spoilers here in case you're still catching up, so we'll leave it at that).

The dagger is on display currently at the Cushing Library, along with a rotating selection of other materials related to the hugely popular books and HBO show they inspired. The dagger is viewable at Cushing Library because, ever since 1993, it has served as the repository for all things George R. R. Martin.

The author's association with Texas A & M began in the 1970s during visits to AggieCon, an annual science fiction and fantasy convention. Martin was impressed with the sci-fi and fantasy collection at Cushing and chose the library to deposit his personal correspondence, books, and manuscripts.

The Martin collection at Cushing continues to grow each year as materials related to the HBO production are also deposited there. At the moment, the collection consists of approximately 50,000 pieces in 300 boxes, almost all of which is available for public view. Highlights for fans of the series include swords from the show, correspondence between publishers and showrunners, and a wide variety of memorabilia. 

The dagger—and the rest of the Martin collection—are available to view at 400 Spence Street on the campus of Texas A & M in College Station, Texas.

Last week the Kislak Center at the University of Miami Libraries dedicated a new gallery and opened its inaugural exhibition, Open New Worlds: A Journey Through the Kislak Collection, featuring two hundred rare books, manuscripts, maps, globes, and artifacts related to exploration of the early Americas.

The gallery, located on the mezzanine level of the Otto G. Richter Library, “celebrates the vision, passion, and generosity” of collector and philanthropist Jay I. Kislak, who died last year at the age of 96. In 2017, he presented the University of Miami Libraries with a landmark gift of rare books that included a first edition of the famous 1493 letter of Christopher Columbus, in which his describes the New World. 

Another fairly quiet week in the auction rooms coming up:

On Tuesday, May 7, Bonhams Los Angeles sells Prints & Multiples, in 214 lots. A copy of Albrecht Dürer's 1498 engraving known as Hercules at the Crossroads is estimated at $30,000–50,000, as is a complete set of Robert Indiana's 1968 screenprints, Numbers. Two Andy Warhol works also rate high estimates: a copy of the 1964 offset lithograph Liz ($25,000–35,000) and a framed copy of Black Bean Soup from the Campbell's Soup series ($20,000–30,000).

An RR Auctions sale of Fine Autographs and Artifacts, Featuring JFK ends on Wednesday, May 8. The 749-lot auction includes a manuscript copy of Bob Dylan's lyrics for "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (estimated at $60,000+); an original chalk and charcoal study for the official White House portrait of JFK by Aaron Shikler (estimated at $50,000+); seven documents associated with the rescue of Hungarian Jews during World War II, including two signed by Raoul Wallenberg (estimated at $30,000+); and a window sash from the Texas School Book Depository (estimated at $25,000+). Rating the same estimate are a collection of Boston playbills from the early 1860s, some featuring John Wilkes Booth, and an autograph album featuring an inscribed sketch of Mickey Mouse by Walt Disney.

The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society holds one of their regular book auctions on Friday, May 10. The 463-lot sale includes a vast quantity of Mennonite and local history material.

Fine press book culture in California owes much to H. Mallette Dean (1907-1975), a prolific printmaker and illustrator perhaps best known for a talent of tailoring his work to each commission. A regular illustrator for the Book Club of California, Grabhorn Press, Colt Press, and the Allen Press, Dean’s distinctive, modernist style was largely influenced by social realist muralist Ray Boynton (1883-1951). Dean completed many WPA-funded projects as well; two massive murals commissioned by the Federal Public Works Project grace the interior of San Francisco’s Coit Tower.

On Monday, May 6, the Book Club of California opens an exhibit dedicated to Dean in conjunction with the publication of its latest book, Mallette Dean: a Printmaker and His Art, written by John T. Hawk (regular edition $285, deluxe $1,200). Items on display hail from the Club’s 10,000-volume-strong Sperisen Library, whose collection focuses on the art of fine printing in California as well as printing history in general. Many of the original images featured in Hawk’s book are part of the exhibition.

Viewing opens at 5pm, with remarks by Mr. Hawk to follow at 5:30. Copies of Mallette Dean will be available for purchase. The show is on view through August 12, 2019. RSVP for opening night here.