Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

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

Aristophil sale 44 will be held at Aguttes on Monday, September 27, Poètes & Écrivains des XIXe–XXe Siècles, in 200 lots. The manuscript of Celine's Normance rates the top estimate, at €100,000–150,000. More than 500 letters from René Char to Maryse Lafont could sell for €80,000–100,000. A volume of 47 autograph poems by Paul Verlaine, bound together, is estimated at €50,000–60,000.

At University Archives on Wednesday, September 29, 410 lots of Autographs & Art, from Van Gogh to Hendrix. A Van Gogh autograph note of hymn verses is estimated at $40,000–50,000, and a 1798 George Washington autograph letter to his nephew Bushrod Washington is rated at $28,000–35,000. A signed George Custer CDV could fetch $20,000–26,000.

Fine Golf Books, Clubs & Memorabilia are the order of the day at PBA Galleries on Wednesday, in 317 lots. The first prose book devoted to golf, Rules of the Thistle Golf Club (1824) is estimated at $10,000–15,000. John Smart's A View of the Links: Views of the Golf Greens of Scotland (1893), missing two of the plates, could fetch $8,000–12,000. Two notebooks from Golf Collectors Society co-founder Joe Murdoch are estimated at $5,000–8,000.

At Forum Auctions on Thursday, September 30, 514 lots of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper. Scottish photographer John Thomson's four-volume Illustrations of China and Its People (1873–74) rates the top estimate at £15,000–20,000. The first collected edition of Milton's poetry, Poems of Mr. John Milton (1645), could sell for £12,000–18,000; the same estimate has been assigned to a copy of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale in an unrestored dust jacket. An Aleister Crowley charcoal sketch of the Tyrrhenian Sea is estimated at £10,000–15,000.

On Thursday at Swann Galleries, 349 lots of Printed & Manuscript Americana. A complete set of the works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, formerly in the collection of José Gallart Folch, is estimated at $80,000–120,000. A set of four watercolors of scenes from the battles of Lexington and Concord painted by 14-year-old St. John Honeywood based on Amos Doolittle's engravings, could sell for $50,000–75,000. A first edition Book of Mormon is estimated at the same range.

Rounding out the week, Miniature Books with Books to Benefit the Miniature Book Society on Thursday at PBA Galleries. The 132 lots include several of Barbara Raheb's handcolored copies from her Pennyweight Press editions, including Saint George and the Dragon, Mythical Creatures, and The Haunted House. Quite a few other Raheb editions are also included.