Rare Books at Auction this Week

Forum Auctions in London holds a sale of Fine Books and Works on Paper on Thursday, January 25, in 385 lots. A John Wesley autograph letter rates the joint top estimate, at £8,000-12,000. Sharing the honors is a complete set of the French art magazine Verve: Revue Artistique et Littéraire (1937-1960). A group of seventeen ink and watercolor drawings by Charles Edward Brock for a 1908 edition of Sense and Sensibility is estimated at £6,000-8,000, and the Laurence Hodson copy of the Doves Press Bible could fetch £5,000-7,000.

                                                                                                                                                There are a couple interesting association copies at this sale: a first edition of Jane Austen's collected works (1833) presented by Austen's favorite niece, Fanny Catherine Knight Knatchbull, to her daughter Louisa in 1856 (£2,000-3,000 - pictured), and the Doves Press edition of Milton's Aereopagitica (1907) presented by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson to his son Richard (£800-1,200).

                                                                                                                                                               A much-annotated Latin Bible (Louvain, 1569) is estimated at just £500-700.

                                                                                                                                             Also on Thursday, Americana - Travel & Exploration - Cartography at PBA Galleries, in 500 lots. 

                                                                                                                                            See Rebecca's post from last week for the big highlight of the January 27 Winter Fine Art and Antiques sale at Case Antiques, Inc., the volume from George Washington's library which later belonged to John Marshall (est. $28,000-32,000). This sale also contains a few other books from Marshall's library.

                                                                                                                                             Potter & Potter hosts a Fine Books & Manuscripts sale on Saturday, in 563 lots. These include a notable variety of material related to Harry Truman from the collection of his Appointment Secretary, Matthew J. Connelly, and to Connelly's trial for conspiracy to defraud the United States, which ultimately led to a pardon by President Kennedy in 1962. The pardon certificate is among the lots for sale, estimated at $7,000-9,000. A suit once owned by Lee Harvey Oswald is estimated at $15,000-20,000.

                                                                                                                                                          A rare J.D. Salinger letter to a fan could fetch $7,000-9,000, and a Walt Whitman postcard to the poet Gabriel Sarrazin is estimated at $4,000-6,000.

                                                                                                                                                            Image credit: Forum Auctions