Whitman Manuscript Takes the Lead at Bonhams

Nearly reaching the top lot spot was an early 15th century "Book of Hours," that sold for $50,000. It bears an ownership inscription by Pre-Raphaelite British artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), as well as his book plate. Also tied to Burne-Jones—featuring 87 of his woodcut illustration designs—was one of 425 paper copies of “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer” printed by William Morris’ Kelmscott Press in 1896, which brought $46,250. 

Another fine press highlight was one of the finest productions of the Shakespeare Head Press, and perhaps the most difficult to acquire of its editions on vellum: "The Works" by Edmund Spenser, Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, 1930-32, which achieved $20,000.

From the sale's section of travel, natural history and color plate books, a key work that stood out was "Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of Two Hundred Photographs, With Letterpress Description of the Places and People Represented," 1873-1874, by John Thomson (1837-1921). The first edition in special binding achieved $46,250, far exceeding its $20,000 high estimate. Another notable lot from the category was an extremely rare Jesuit manuscript on the colonization of Brazil, entitled "Historia da Companhia de Jesu da Provincia Domaranham e Para...," 1759, by Jose De Morales. Intriguingly, this copy was once nearly lost in a shipwreck. It brought $31,250.

Most successful from the art and illustration portion of the sale was a signed, limited edition of "A Book of Cats," by Tsuguharu Foujita, New York: Covici Friede, 1930, which brought $36,250, past a $30,000 high estimate.

From the Americana portion of the auction, an extremely rare broadside from 1769, regulating the number of bars, pool halls and cabarets in the young city of New Orleans, achieved $35,000, soaring past a $15,000 high estimate. It was signed by then Louisiana governor Alejandro O'Reilly (1722-1794) and was only the third broadside edict to be printed in New Orleans immediately after he arrived in the city and took formal possession of Louisiana in August of 1769. 

Additional stand-out lots from that section included "The American Woods, Exhibited by Actual Specimens and with Copious Explanatory Text," 1957, by Romeyn Beck Hough, which sold for $22,500, and a Revolutionary War map of the Battle of Long Island, 1776, which achieved $18,750, past an $8,000 high estimate.

For additional information about the sale, please visit www.bonhams.com/21845/.

First image: Lot 184 

WHITMAN, WALT. 1819-1892. 
Autograph Manuscript Signed ("Walt Whitman"), titled "Rain Enigma," 1 p, 4to, [Camden, NJ, 1885], being a working draft of the poem "The Voice of the Rain," with holograph corrections, deletions, and additions by Whitman in ink and pencil, on verso of Department of Justice stationery, uneven toning, two small old stains, some fading to pencil at bottom, old vertical crease from bottom right corner, tipped to mat at top edge, matted and framed with portrait photograph, presentation inscription, and copy of the printed poem. 
Provenance: framed with presentation inscription from Whitman associate Horace Traubel: "To Wayland Hyatt Smith / with both hands /Horace Traubel / November / 1895." 

WORKING DRAFT OF "THE VOICE OF THE RAIN," WITH NUMEROUS CORRECTIONS AND EMENDATIONS IN WHITMAN'S HAND. The poem was first published in the journal Outing in August 1885, and was included in the 1888 edition of Leaves of Grass in the "Sands of Seventy" annex. In the present draft the poem bears its original title "The Rain Enigma," which has been cancelled and corrected by Whitman to its published title, "The Voice of the Rain." In addition to more than a dozen cancellations, insertions, and emendations, below Whitman's signature appear five lines in pencil with several corrections which show Whitman working out what would become the eighth line of the poem ("And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn"). 
One of Whitman's late verses, "The Voice of the Rain" finds the poet in conversation—literally—with nature. As published: 

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, 
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: 
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, 
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, 
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, 
and yet the same, 
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, 
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; 
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own 
origin, and make pure and beautify it; 
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wander- 
ing, 
Reck'd or unreck'd. duly with love returns.) 

The provenance of the present manuscript is impressive. Horace Traubel (1858-1919) was perhaps the foremost of Whitman's disciples, and the author of the nine-volume Walt Whitman in Camden, an account of the last four years of Whitman's life told through Traubel's notes of his daily conversations with the poet. As one of Whitman's literary executors Traubel tirelessly devoted himself to preserving and promoting Whitman's legacy, founding and publishing a journal dedicated to his work (The Conservator), publishing his own verse inspired by Whitman's, and founding the Walt Whitman Fellowship International. Wayland Hyatt Smith, to whom Traubel gifted the manuscript "with both hands," was a member of the Fellowship International who contributed a paper on the "Blending of Orient and Occident in Whitman" at the Fellowship's fourth annual meeting in Philadelphia on May 31, 1897. Sold for $52,500.