Works on the History of Psychiatry to Auction at Swann
Swann Galleries
From the Ken Rapoport Collection: Lot 32: Juan Rufo, La Austriada, Madrid, first edition, 1584. Estimate $3,000 to $5,000; Lot 18: Pedro de Espinosa, Primera Parte de las Flores de Poetas Ilustres de España, Dividida en los Libros, first edition, Valladolid, 1605. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.
The fall Early Printed Books auction at Swann Galleries on October 12 will feature lots from three important collectors, including more from Ken Rapoport, as well as works on the history of psychiatry collected by Dr. Michael H. Stone, and literary high spots amassed by the Culpepper, Virginia, bibliophile Christopher Clark Geest.
In addition to his clinical work, research, and publications in the field of forensic psychiatry, Dr. Stone’s passion as an avid book collector resulted in the assemblage of important writings on human thought, feeling, and emotion and our struggles to understand ourselves. The collection begins with incunabula and moves through the centuries, documenting the culture’s growth from belief in the occult and witchcraft into a more scientific understanding and approach to the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and emotional disorders. His collection reflects this depth and breadth.
As well as works by Freud and Darwin, lots include early printed English books on psychology, 18th century treatises on the interpretation of dreams, and 19th century assessments of the way institutionalized patients were treated and mistreated.
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Lot 194: Johannes de Laet, Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien door Ionnes de Laet. Tweede druck, second expanded edition, 1630. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.
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Lot 244: Johannes Gerson, De Pollutione Nocturna, Cologne, about 1467-1472. Estimate $3,000 to $5,000. From Dr. Michael Stone’s Psychiatry Collection.
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Lot 190: Thomas Grierson, Three Diaries Including an Account of a Shipwreck, circa 1875. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.
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Lot 95: Thucydides, The Hystory Writtone by Thucidides the Athenyan of the Warre, whiche was betwene the Peloponesians and the Athenyans, first edition, London, 1550. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000. Ex libris Christopher Clark Geest.
Geest had a great love for literary works in the English language and focused his collecting on some of the best-known verse and prose by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Burton, Swift, Burns, and Johnson. His special interest in the development of the novel in the early modern period is highlighted by number of earliest gothic novels, including first editions of Horace Walpole’s The Castle at Otranto and Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland. Other important books include first editions of Hobbe’s Leviathan, Johnson’s Dictionary, and Spenser’s Faerie Queen, as well as Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus, as extracted from Shakespeare’s First Folio.
Additional notable highlights from the sale include a group of important works in economics and a run of illustrated 17th and 18th century continental imprints documenting and illustrating antiquities. These beautifully printed and illustrated books describe engraved Roman Gems and medals, oil lamps, signet rings, coins, ivory diptychs, and other treasures held in early modern European museums and collections.
