rare book

Rare Hemingway Proof Up For Auction

Filed under: Auctions

The book shown here may not look like much bit it is a rare treasure, the only known inscribed and signed advance of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. ever to surface will be offered at Swann Galleries' auction of 19th & 20th Century Literature on Thursday, November 29.The proof contains Hemingway's handwritten corrections including a dedication to Martha Gellhorn, and is signed and inscribed to Hemingway's longtime friend and employee Toby Otto Bruce. The inscription reads, "To Otto, with much affection and deep appreciation for all he did to make this book." The proof comes with a handmade suede cover that Hemingway used to protect the book while copyreading and it is also signed. The book comes from Bruce's family and has a pre-auction estimate of $75,000 to $125,000.

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Tags: ernest hemingway, ErnestHemingway, for whom the bell tolls, ForWhomTheBellTolls, literature, rare book

Rare Botanical Book Up For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

PBA Galleries is offering another rare book for auction. This one is actually a set of Johann Wilhelm Weinmann's Duidelyke Vertoning, also known as the Phytanthoza Iconographia. The four-volume set was published in Amsterdam from 1736 to 1748 and contained some 1,025 plates of plants, many of them color mezzotints and considered the first successful use of color printing in a botanical work. This version has the text and plates interspersed and is listed with an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The book is up for bid on June 14 and the auction's listing has a few more pictures from this beautiful work.

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Tags: art, auction, book, botanical illustration, rare book

Rare Shakespeare Work Sells for $5.2M

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

At a Sotheby's auction in London yesterday, a very rare First Folio of Shakespeare's works sold for £2.8 million (approx $5.2 million US). The book, which contains 36 complete plays including Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night, was printed in 1623 and was in mint condition. Some say that these works were saved by their inclusion in the volume and would otherwise have been lost. Today, there are less than 250 copies of the First Folio and the majority are incomplete or damaged. The book was purchased by Simon Finch Rare Books, a London-based book dealer, so it is likely that it will be on the market again in the future.

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Tags: auction, book, first folio, london, rare book, shakespeare, sotheby's

Rare Book Lost in Leeds

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

A very rare book has been found, discarded, on a street in Leeds. Abandoned, perhaps, after thieves discarded it following a robbery, the owner has not yet come forward. What makes the 300-year old book noteworthy is that it is bound in human skin. It was a not-uncommon practice in the 17th century to use the skin of murders to bind the accounts of their trials or the skin of cadavers to bind medical texts. Books such as this one, especially when kept in good condition, are prized by rare book collectors. No report yet as to the value of the book, but if no owner comes forward, it could be auctioned off by the police department.