Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:

Early Printing, Americana, Bibles at New England Book Auctions on Tuesday, March 1, in 165 lots. A copy of the rare 1866–67 publication Chicago Illustrated, with the prospectus bound in, could sell for $8,000–12,000. In the same estimate range are Philip Pitman's Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi (1770) and James Linforth's Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley (1855), designed to attract emigrants to Utah. A copy of the first technical printing manual published in America, C.S. Van Winkle's The Printer's Guide (1818) is expected to sell for $2,000–3,000. An imperfect copy of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects (1773) could fetch $3,000–4,000. Also of interest are an early 1770s Cox & Berry catalogue of books for sale in Boston, and copies of the 1789 library catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia and the 1790 catalogue of Harvard's library.

At Bonhams London on Wednesday, March 2, 179 lots of Travel & Exploration. Among the books and photographs, John Claude White's Tibet and Lhasa (1908) rates the top estimate at £10,000–15,000. James Dalton Hooker's Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of the H.M.S. Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843 (1844–1847) could sell for £6,000–8,000.

On Wednesday at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, 365 lots of Printed Books & Maps, Birds, Fish, Insects & Flowers. The first complete edition of Maria Sibylla Merian's Dissertatio de Generatione et Metamorphosibus Insectorum Surinamensium (1719) is expected to lead the way at £20,000–30,000. Dame Juliana Berners' The Gentlemans Academie (1595), edited by Gervase Markham, could sell for £5,000–8,000. William Curtis' Flora Londinensis (1777–1798) is estimated at £3,000–5,000.

At Sydney Rare Book Auctions on Friday, March 4, 629 lots of History, Military, Art, Early, Australia, Norman Lindsay, Private Press and more. Leon Gellert's The Isle of San (1919) with five etchings by Norman Lindsay, this Copy #12 of 120 and inscribed by Lindsay and signed by both Gellert and Lindsay, is estimated at A$15,000–18,000. The 1939 publication Cyaniding for Gold, with its original dust jacket, could sell for A$3,000–4,000.