Important Copy of "The Federalist" May Bring $100,000 at Heritage Auctions
DALLAS - Direct from the collection of New York Post founder Samuel Boyd, an important copy of The Federalist may sell for as much as $100,000 in Heritage Auction’s Sept. 15 Rare Books Auction in Dallas. The collection of published essays, primarily written by Founding Fathers James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, convinced New York voters to ratify the newly proposed U.S. Constitution.
“An entire generation went by before Americans realized this book is the most authoritative interpretation of the Constitution as drafted by the Convention of 1787,” said James Gannon, Director of Rare Books at Heritage Auctions. “This book is one our nation's most important contributions to the theory of government, and this copy has rock solid provenance to one of America’s greatest entrepreneurs.”
The two-volume copy is directly traced to Boyd, a wealthy merchant who founded The New York Post with Hamilton; Boyd signed both bound volumes on each of the title pages.
The auction’s range of historical volumes also includes an influential copy of The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith, used as a reference by notable anti-Mormon author Pomeroy Tucker ($70,000+). This copy is one of 5,000 first editions printed in 1830 and was actually printed (and also signed and inscribed) by Tucker himself in his role as a press foreman for printer E. B. Grandin. Ironically, Tucker would move on from his printing apprenticeship to become a journalist and New York politician, and he later penned Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism, a book arguing that Smith was dishonest.
Modern literary works on offer include a 1923 printing of the first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s first book: Three Stories & Ten Poems. One of only 300 printed, the copy retains the book’s original grayish-blue printed wrappers (est. $15,000+). And a first edition of The Lord of the Rings, including The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (est. $20,000+).
Additional highlights include, but are not limited to:
Collectible inscribed books:
· Cannery Row, inscribed by John Steinbeck to fellow author Anaïs Nin (est. $5,000+),
· Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? inscribed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Leonard Bernstein ($6,500+), and
· Blood Meridian, 1985, signed by author Cormac McCarthy (est. $6,000).
More historical imprints, including:
· A printing of the Journals of Congress, Containing Their Proceedings - 1800-1801 (est. $6,500+) and
· The Significance of the Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893, the first print appearance of this page-turner on the American frontier (est. $3,000+).
Heritage Auctions is the largest auction house founded in the United States and the world’s third largest, with annual sales of more than $800 million, and 950,000+ online bidder members. For more information about Heritage Auctions, and to join and receive access to a complete record of prices realized, with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit HA.com.
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