Over the past 60 years I’ve been acquiring material related to Ulster County, New York and over the decades have found increasing opportunities to acquire early source documentation. Such discoveries are beyond random and tend to come up as boxes of unsorted records, sometimes as few as 30 items and in other cases tens of boxes and thousands of examples. They represent concentration and tend to be highly specific and illuminate day to day realities that were often more difficult than printed accounts of local history suggest. Life has always been complicated and how individuals and organ...
Dorothy Sloan, whose career in the rare book field closely paralleled the post-World War II expansion, saw it come to a close recently. She was an early advocate of the Americana Exchange and for ...
Dr. Seuss is in the news again, and sadly as it now always seems, for the wrong reason. Generations of children love his books. He was one of the few authors who could actually make children want t...
Publishing decision ignites furor on many fronts.
It was news in February when Hasbro dropped the “Mister” from Mr. Potato Head in a move the company said hoped would make the classic popular t...
On January 29, 1974 Sotheby Parke- Bernet sold the library of Gordon A. Block Jr. The sale consisted of 257 lots, beginning with books by Louisa May Alcott, and ending with the Brinley copy of a ra...
On 28th March we remember the passing of Leigh Stein on that day in 2020 on the very doorsteps of Covid-19. He succumbed to age at 90. He was a bookman of the old school but was in fact a late ad...
Collecting interests have evolved over the years. The “works on paper” field, once almost synonymous with books, now covers a wide range of collectible paper. Maps, manuscripts, prints, photographs...
In the “People-been-through-..it” series, please welcome Pierre Viaud! In 1766, he survived a shipwreck off the coast of Florida only to go through 81 days of pain and hunger, being forced to kill ...
The Grolier Club Library is pleased to announce the receipt of a major gift, the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting, which is the most important and comprehensive collection on the s...
Do you want to buy a home with a library large enough to hold 4,000 books? Too bad. You missed your chance. The “Corner Chateau” in Denver was recently sold. We wrote about this offer in October 20...
Ira Lipman founded and ran for more than five decades Guardsmark, one of the largest private security companies in the United States. Lipman and his wife collected in a wide variety of areas: jewel...
The collection of Elaine and Alexandre P. Rosenberg is among the most important collections of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books to have ever appeared at auction. Moreover, Christie’s...
A hundred years ago fire was the grim reaper for bookstores and libraries. Both common and rare books were always at risk because heat was often provided by stoves and furnaces that employed open ...
One of the disadvantages of writing for a book website is never having an excuse to use nude pictures. Everyone knows that the best way to increase “readership” is to include nude photos. Sure, eve...
Jenni Lecky-Thompson, Head of Library Services at Cambridge University's Trinity Hall, made an unexpected discovery within the pages of a very old book. She found a butterfly. It had been pressed w...
For April, we review nine new bookseller catalogues. From Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller we have art books and the book arts. The William Reese Company is focused on subjects never featured in their p...
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
