alices-adventures-in-wonderland-first-edition-1865.jpgOne of the great rarities of 19th century literature - a true first edition of "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll - will be up for auction at Christie's in New York City on June 16. The book--one of only 23 known copies--is expected to fetch between $2m and $3m.


Two thousand copies of the first edition of "Alice in Wonderland" were printed by Macmillan in 1865, with 50 advance copies sent to Carroll to give away as he wished. Shortly after their arrival, however, Carroll heard from the book's illustrator, John Tenniel, that he was "entirely dissatisfied with the printing of the pictures." Carroll recalled the print run and asked for the advance copies he'd distributed to be returned to him. Mostly they were, and the vast majority of the print run was scrapped for waste paper.


But at least 23 copies survived, with a lingering possibility that other copies might surface over time. Of the known copies, eighteen are owned by institutions and five by private individuals. 


The copy at auction was given by Carroll to his Oxford colleague George William Kitchin, who passed it on to his daughter Alexandra. She, in turn, sold the book at auction in 1925 to the Pforzheimer library. The book has since passed through multiple hands. Its current owner is Jon Lindseth, a Carroll scholar and bibliographer. To read more about Lindseth and this book, go here.  


[Image from Christie's]





MANHATTAN, May 24--The Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was the setting for a daylong symposium dedicated to exploring the history, design, and manufacture of late 19th to early 20th century American publishers' book covers, as well as bookbinders' influence on decorative bookbinding and other artistic movements. Over 125 collectors, curators, librarians, binders, and preservationists also gathered to celebrate the recent acquisition of American decorated publishers' bindings by the Met's Watson Library.

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Book cover design by Alice Cordelia Morse. Written by Paul Leicester Ford - http://matrix.scranton.edu/resources/re_art_gallery_exhibition.shtml#, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29981504

 

After an introduction by the Met's head preservation librarian Mindell Dubansky, Richard Minsky took the podium. The Center for Book Arts founder offered compelling evidence for how American book designers such as Alice Cordelia Morse and Amy Richards formed the vanguard of major artistic movements like Art Deco and Surrealism. Senior book conservator at the Northeast Document Conservation Center Todd Pattison explored the role of women in book production and the industrialization of 19th Century American publishers' bindings. Met curators, including Dubansky and Holly Phillips, spoke about the museum's vast collections dedicated to decorative bookbindings. Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen discussed the influence of stained glass window design on decorative book cover creators.

Women played a huge, if often overlooked role, in the creation of books, and the symposium's speakers highlighted women's achievements in nearly every presentation. During the late 1800s, many women were employed in binderies; folding, sewing, trimming, and stitching books in factories in Philadelphia, Hartford, and New York City. A smaller group of women, such as Alice C. Morse, Sarah Wyman Whitman, and Margaret Armstrong, were primarily responsible for producing beautiful decorative bindings, and maintained successful careers in an ever-evolving industry. Their selection of color palettes, design, and style contributed to the growing field of decorative arts and led the way for future generations of artists.

A closing reception in the Watson library, where original botany watercolors by Margaret Armstrong were on display, put the finishing touches on an illuminating event.

golden goose archive.jpgThe literary archive of the Golden Goose Press of Sausalito, California, will be up for auction at Christie's on June 16. Neal Cassady's "Joan Anderson letter" to Jack Kerouac was discovered in that archive, which we reported on last week. The Joan Anderson letter will be sold separately in the same auction.


The Golden Goose archive contains nearly 200 letters, pamphlets, pieces of ephemera, and related material from the heyday of the press during the 1950s and 1960s. The estimate on the archive is $10,000-15,000.


Richard Wirtz Emerson and Frederick Eckman founded the Golden Goose Press in Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1940s before relocating to Sausalito in the 1950s. There the press attracted contributions from many prominent mid-century poets, including William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Penn Warren, and Ezra Pound.


The press's archive, which has never been properly examined by scholars, contains material related to 70 different poets, members of the Beats, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Black Mountain writers. Its auction presents an incredibly unique opportunity for collectors and academics interested in twentieth-century poetry.



[Image from Christie's]




The auction of the collection of Marcel Proust's great-grandniece, Patricia Mante-Proust, is, to quote Sotheby's, "a real literary event," and that's not publicity blather. Going to auction at Sotheby's Paris on May 31 is an exceptional archive of very personal material, including family photos and love letters to and from Proust, heretofore censored by the family. More than 120 items (lots 116-241) will be offered.

Screen Shot 2016-05-24 at 2.19.42 PM.pngThe one that caught my eye, perhaps because of the scrawled writing across its title page, is this first edition of Du côté de chez Swann (Paris, 1913), inscribed to his American friend Walter Van Rensselaer Berry. The lengthy French inscription, written in July 1916 not long after they met, runs on three pages including the title page as seen here. It reads, in part, "Sir, you probably think, as I do, that the wisest, most poetic and best people are not those who put all their poetry, goodness and knowledge into their work, but those who, with a skilful and prodigal hand, also put a little into their lives." The estimate is ??20,000-30,000 ($22,698-34,047).

The two became friends--Berry had several literary friends, particularly Edith Wharton and Henry James--when Berry sent Proust a fine, eighteenth-century volume in an armorial binding earlier that year. Proust writes about the volume in a June 1916 letter to his lover, Lucien Daudet, and that letter will be offered in the same sale next week, lot 208. It is estimated at ??12,000-15,000 ($13,619-17,024).

To read more about this sale, go here.

Image via Sotheby's.

bonhamsmarx.jpgOn June 15, Bonhams in London will offer at auction a very rare presentation copy of Karl Marx's hugely influential economic work Das Kapital. The copy, inscribed by Marx to his then friend Johann Georg Eccarius, is expected to fetch £80,000-120,000 ($120,000-170,000).


The first edition of Das Kapital, published in 1867, was the only edition released during Marx's life. He inscribed this copy to his friend, Eccarius, who he described as one of his "oldest friends and adherents." Eccarius was a German tailor and a member of the Communist Party predecessor The League of the Just.


The two friends would eventually have a serious falling out over political differences, leading to allegations from Marx that Eccarius was a paid police informant. Marx would later write of Eccarius as a "scoundrel, pure and simple." 


Nevertheless, the well-used Eccarius copy of Das Kapital remained in the hands of the family for the next 149 years until descendants decided to auction the book this year.


Bonhams reports that only two other presentation copies of the book have been previously auctioned.


[Photo from Bonhams]






We're jumping on the Hamilton bandwagon and highlighting three historical documents related to the Founding-Father-turned-Broadway-star that will be among the incredible selection of Americana going to auction this week at Sotheby's New York.

Screen Shot 2016-05-22 at 9.59.29 PM.pngOne: A two-page printed Treasury Department circular dated July 20, 1792 and signed "A. Hamilton" (as first Secretary of the Treasury). The estimate is $4,000-7,000.

Screen Shot 2016-05-22 at 9.51.41 PM.pngTwo: Another printed Treasury Department circular, this one dated August 6, 1792, also signed "A. Hamilton." The estimate is $4,000-7,000.

Screen Shot 2016-05-22 at 9.58.38 PM.pngThree: A disbound copy of Hamilton's 1797 pamphlet, Observations on Certain Documents..., reprinted in 1800 by his enemies because he confided marital infidelity in its pages. The estimate is $2,000-3,000.

For more highlights from this sale, check out the full press release.

Last year, the world celebrated 150 consecutive years of Alice in Wonderland in print with seminars, conferences, readings and film screenings. 2016 has another tantalizing event on the horizon: At high noon on June 16, in a stand-alone sale at Christie's New York, an extremely rare first edition copy of Lewis Carroll's landmark publication will be on the auction block, still in its original red cloth binding and with unparalleled provenance. Sometimes referred to as the "Suppressed Alice," the first edition was published on July 4, 1865, only to be withdrawn by Carroll days later because the book's illustrator, John Tenniel, had declared the quality of the printed illustrations subpar. All 2,000 copies were recalled, though Carroll retained 50 advance copies in his possession.


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Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge ('Lewis Carroll'), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: [The Clarendon Press for] Macmillan, 1865. 42 wood-engraved illustrations by the Dalziel brothers after John Tenniel. Original publisher's red cloth decorated in gilt, original endpapers with Burn bindery ticket on rear pastedown. Estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000. Credit: Christie's Images LTD.


As a result, surviving copies are rare. "With only twenty-two extant copies, this first edition is rarer than Shakespeare's First Folio," said Jon A. Lindseth, the book's current owner. "Of these, sixteen are held by institutions, and six remain in private hands. Of the editions held privately, two are in their original cloth--always my objective as a collector--with one of these described as heavily worn." Lindseth, a passionate collector of Lewis Carroll for over a quarter century and general editor of the recently published three-volume Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll's Masterpiece (Oak Knoll Press), acquired his copy in 1997 from legendary television and film producer Bill Self (1921-2010). Prior to Self, it was owned by Chicago book collector Harriet Borland (1905-1997), financier-turned-bibliophile Carl H. Pforzheimer (1879-1957), Carroll's child friend Alexandra Kitchin (1864-1925), and her father George Kitchin (1827-1912), Carroll's Oxford colleague who acquired the book from the author.

                                                                                                                                                                    

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One of the images Tenniel declared entirely dissatistactory, leading to the recall of the entire first edition. Credit: Christie's Images LTD.


"No other copy in this condition, with this provenance, exists in private hands," Lindseth said. "Today, all significant Lewis Carroll collections are held by private institutions. The lack of Lewis Carroll collections in Great Britain led me to gift my own collection to the British Library." Since the British Library already has a copy of the 1865 Alice, Lindseth is putting his edition up for sale.

Pre-sale estimates for the 1865 Alice in Wonderland are $2,000,000-3,000,000. Christie's will host this sale on Thursday, June 16 at noon, at Rockefeller Plaza. For more information, visit www.christies.com.

Litersf1$kerouac-and-cassady.jpgNeal Cassady's hugely influential 1950 letter to Jack Kerouac - called "The Joan Anderson Letter" - will be a leading lot in the June 16 auction at Christie's. 


The 13,000-word stream-of-consciousness letter was penned to Kerouac while Cassady was on a three-day Benzedrine high. Amongst other topics, Cassady ruminates on his chaotic love affairs, particularly with a woman named Joan Anderson who he visited in a hospital after a failed suicide attempt. Cassady's spontaneous prose was nothing less than a revelation to Kerouac, who, after reading it, trashed his early drafts of "On the Road" and started over with what would become his trademark style.


"It was the greatest piece of writing I ever saw, better'n anybody in America, or at least enough to make Melville, Twain, Dreiser, Wolfe, I dunno who, spin in their graves," Kerouac said to a journalist with The Paris Review in 1968.


Long thought lost, the Joan Anderson letter resurfaced in 2012 in the files of the Golden Goose Press after following a circuitous route to arrive there in the first place. A planned auction of the letter was set at Profiles in History in 2014 (which we wrote about on this blog), but was later canceled when both the Cassady and the Kerouac estates filed claims of ownership for the letter.


Almost two years later, the letter is with Christie's. It remains unclear - at time of writing - which person, or what estate, is now offering the letter for auction. 


Neal Cassady material is virtually unprecedented on the rare book market. The estimate for the letter, a shot in the dark, is $400,000-600,000.


Only a fragment of the letter has ever been published. 


This auction will be one to watch.


[Image from Wikipedia]









787px-Caveat_Emptor_2005-08-11.jpgWord reached us that Caveat Emptor, the largest used and rare bookstore in southern Indiana, will close in August unless an interested buyer steps forward.   

Caveat Emptor, located in downtown Bloomington, has been in business since 1971, and its owner, Janis Starcs, is looking forward to retirement. That said, they're hopeful that someone will take over the shop and its stock of 50,000 books. John McGuigan, the store's Internet sales manager, told us: "After 45 years, it is time to let a younger and more vigorous owner, perhaps someone with a different vision, take over. We hope that Caveat Emptor will not have to close its doors." He added that they "have had several interested buyers and are entertaining offers ... In the worst case, if no offers pan out, we would bow out at the end of August. But a university town like Bloomington needs a good used book store, so we're optimistic about the future of Caveat Emptor.

Any interested parties should contact caveatemptorbooks@live.com or call (812) 332-9995.

                                                                                                                                                       Image via Bloomingpedia.

Fre?de?ric_Dard_(1992)_by_Erling_Mandelmann.jpgOne of the twentieth century's bestselling crime novelists also happens to be someone you've probably never heard of: Frédéric Dard. Despite selling a staggering 200 million copies of his novels in his native France, Dard was never widely translated into English. The author died in 2000, with 300 books published, but not a single English language edition still in print.


All of that is about to change.


Pushkin Press is translating a whole slough of Dard's novels into English under its Vertigo Crime imprint for an ambitious release schedule beginning this summer with "Bird in a Cage." (August release date in the US; earlier in Britain). The psychological thriller is summarized by Vertigo as follows, "30-year-old Albert returns to Paris after six years away, during which time his mother has passed away, to find himself entangled in a complicated case centred around a woman he met at a restaurant whose husband's body appears in her lounge, but then disappears almost inexplicably."


As for the author himself, Frédéric Dard led a complicated life. Born in 1921, Dard became a close friend of Georges Simenon, whose Maigret series of detective novels became a hit in 1960s Britain. Dard also wrote under at least seventeen pseudonyms, making an official tally of his published titles difficult to obtain. His personal history was marred with an attempted suicide and the successful kidnapping and ransoming of his daughter from his second marriage. He died in Switzerland in 2000.

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"Bird in a Cage" will be quickly followed by "The Wicked Go to Hell," and "Crush" this fall. Described as "novels of the night," Vertigo hopes the books will be devoured by the same crowds of readers that made "Gone Girl," and "Girl on a Train" runaway bestsellers.