Source : Laurence Witten Rare Books
| Source Title | |
| Description | Laurence Claiborne Witten was an American bookseller who specialized in European works. A graduate of Yale, he opened up shop nearby in New Haven in the 1950s. He later moved to Southport Connecticut, continuing deeply in the business until 1983, when he suffered a heart attack. His cataloging came to an end after that, though he remained partly in business until the early 1990s, and lived until 1995. Witten left many of his manuscripts to the Beinecke Library at Yale, and his major stringed instrument musical collection was sold to the University of South Dakota National Music Museum in 1984 for $3 million. Perhaps the most famous incident of Witten's career came when he brought back from Europe the so-called Vinland map. This supposedly circa 1440 map showed a land mass east of Greenland called "Vinland," with a notation that it had been visited by Europeans in the 11th century. This map would have predated Columbus by half a century, and completely revised most thinking about who and when America was "discovered." While widely accepted when information was first released in 1965, later testing of the ink and comparisons with other contemporary maps have led most to conclude it is a forgery. |
| Scope of Text | |
| Total Records in AED | 1645 |
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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 -
