Rare Book Monthly
<i>In The News:</i> The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More
Via Libri adds eight new sites to its search engine.
Via Libri, another multi-site book search engine, announced that it has added eight new sites to the group it searches. According to a news release from the firm, the additional sites searched "now establishes it [Via Libri] as the world's largest internet marketplace for old and rare books." Via Libri states it now reaches the online listings of over 20,000 booksellers with combined inventories of over 150 million books.
The multi-site search engines search the listings of numerous different book-listing sites and combine all of their results. The largest addition comes from five Amazon sites Via Libri now searches: American, Canadian, British, French and German. The other newly searched sites are IOBABooks, Spanish site Uniliber, and British based Biblion.
AbeBooks released its top 10 most expensive books for March, and while there is nothing on the level of a Lincoln letter here, any one of these sales would have made for a most pleasant day for the average bookseller. This month's subjects include math and chemistry, poetry, what was once the future, and a bridge to somewhere.
10. The Ascent of Everest by John Hunt, published in 1953, and signed by 40 climbers. One was Edmund Hillary, better remembered than expedition leader Hunt, because he made it to the top. $5,000.
9. Five Go to Smuggler's Top, a 1945 first edition of number four in author Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. $5,038.
8. Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, a virtually complete set of 372 volumes of Leopold Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, published from 1926-1984. No light reading here. $5,284.
7. Anthropos. Revue Internationale d'Ethnographie et de Linguistique. This set contains a mere 60 volumes of the International Journal of Anthropology and Linguistics. $5,458.
6. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's look at the future from 1949, when this first edition, first printing was published. $6,780.
5. Merely Connect, a 1994 book with a very short print run by author Salmon Rushdie and artist Tom Philips, signed by both. $7,325.
4. An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Suspension Bridge Constructed over the Menai Strait in North Wales... an 1828 elephant folio first edition about a bridge linking the island of Anglesey with Wales, by Thomas Telford. $7,614.
Rare Book Monthly
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Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
28th May 2026Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000Forum, 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]. £2,000-3,000Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
28th May 2026Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
28th May 2026Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
28th May 2026Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000Forum, 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 -
