Other highlights include:
* a first printing of The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald from 1925, an exceedingly rare presentation copy, containing an inscription from the author made out “with affection” to Zelda Fitzgerald’s sister and her husband, Newman Smith, whom Fitzgerald refers to by his nickname “Captain.”
Estimate: $180,000–250,000
* a 1900 presentation copy of The Wizard of Oz, a rare first edition, first issue, featuring an inscription from the author L. Frank Baum to a close family friend, Miss Elizabeth Hubbard. The inscription reads, "When in this book you take a look. My little sweethearth Beth, Just think I writ the whole of it, And yet am yours 'til death -- L. Frank Baum”, revealing the close connection between the Hubbard family and Baum. This copy bears a double association, having once belonged to the Oz author, illustrator, and bibliographer Dick Martin. Estimate: $120,000 - 180,000.
* a presentation copy of A Christmas Carol inscribed and signed by Charles Dickens, made out to his friend Walter Savage Landor from his “affectionate friend”. Landor was a close associate of Dickens on whom the author based the character of Lawrence Boythorn in Bleak House. One of a handful of copies of A Christmas Carol inscribed by Dickens on 17 December, 1843, two days before the official publication and the first date that the author signed copies of his famous novella. Estimate: $200,000 - 300,000
$1.2 Million Estimate for Autograph Manuscript of Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four autograph manuscript
Sotheby’s' Book Week in June will feature items from the library of surgeon and book collector Dr. Rodney P. Swantko including Sidney Paget’s original drawing for the illustration The Death of Sherlock Holmes for the Arthur Conan Doyle short story The Final Problem, and a rare first edition of Edger Allan Poe's Tamerlane and Other Poems.
The manuscript of The Sign of Four (estimate: $800,000 – $1,200,000) is signed twice by the author and contains edits to “Americanize” the text for publication in the United States. The manuscript is offered with a collection of autograph letters between Conan Doyle and J. M Stoddart, the American businessman and editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine who commissioned The Sign of Four. The letters chronicle the progress of the book, including discussion on the title as well as Conan Doyle’s happiness with the printing, in particular the illustration.
Also leading the sale is Edgar Allan Poe 's Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827 ($400,000–$600,000). This is considered to be one of the rarest first editions of American literature. Offered in its original printed tan wrappers, it is one of only a dozen copies known to exist, and one of only two remaining in private hands. The 40-page collection is the only known book printed by 18-year-old Calvin F.S. Thomas, to be published anonymously in an edition of about 50 copies with the only authorship credited to "A Bostonian." Poe’s name wasn’t used until his second collection of poems Al Araaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems in 1829.
