Recently, the somber news was quick to come out; John Waite was dead. There are, to many people but not to me, awareness that the name John Waite is shared by more than one person in my data feed and so I assumed it was John Waite, the book seller, who was said to have passed away. Then low and behold it turned out that the passing was of John Waite, the singer best known for Missing You and once the lead singer for the band Bad English, who had been hoaxed and restored quicker than good Friday could become sorry Saturday. Hoorah.
This did not stop me from noticing the first bit of news, but not the later update, and I made plans to write about the life of John Waite, the Ascutney, Vermont ABAA member, the appraiser and broker of books, manuscripts and ephemera.
I then began to search online for references and could find nothing mentioning the mortal coil. I then called his listed number, hoping to receive the recording “ the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” but expecting a somber voice.
Well, John picked up and he sounds, in the words of the trade, fine to very fine and shared with me that in a prior life as a bartender at a New York club well known as a watering hole for rock & roll cognoscenti, the club manager had once brought the other John Waite to the bar and said, “I’d like to introduce John Waite to John Waite.”
They have now gone on to greater things and the best news is, they both have miles to go before they sleep.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
