  • <b>Bonhams: Fine Books and Manuscripts. June 12, 2018</b>
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Ortelius. Theatrum orbis terrarum. Antwerp, 1570. FIRST EDITION. $50,000 to $80,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Shakespeare, William. The Tragedie of Julius Caesar. London, 1623. 1st appearance in print, Complete from the First Folio. $50,000 to $70,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Ernst, Max. Mr. Knife and Miss Fork. Paris, 1932. DELUXE EDITION. $12,000 to $18,000
    <b>Bonhams: Fine Books and Manuscripts. June 12, 2018</b>
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Cage, John. Autograph musical leaf from his Concert for Piano and Orchestra, NY, 1958. $10,000 to $15,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Einstein, Albert. Signed Passport Photo for his US citizenship application. Bermuda, 1935. $8,000 to $12,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Verard, Antoine. Illuminated printed Book of Hours. Paris, 1507. $8,000 to $12,000
    <b>Bonhams: Fine Books and Manuscripts. June 12, 2018</b>
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Wetterkurzschlussel. German Weather Report Codebook - for Enigma use. Berlin, 1942. $20,000 to $30,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Morelos y Pavon, Jose Maria. Autograph letter signed to El Virrey Venegas, February 5, 1812. $7,000 to $10,000
    <b>Bonhams: Fine Books and Manuscripts. June 12, 2018</b>
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Milne, A.A. Complete set of Winnie-the-Pooh books. 4 volumes. All first issue points. London, 1924-1928. $6,000 to $9,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> A 48-star American Flag, battle worn flown at Guadalcanal and Peleliu, 1942-1944. $10,000 to $15,000
    <b>Bonhams, June 12:</b> Locke, John. Autograph Letter Signed mourning the death of his friend, William Molyneaux, 2 pp, October 27, 1698. $7,000 to $10,000
  • <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Thomas Paine, Autograph Letter Signed to Ira Allen, on a rendezvous at the Boston–a Paris café for political exiles, 1790s. $10,000 to $15,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Paul Revere, Autograph Document Signed, certifying the discharge of a captain from his regiment, 1779. $12,000 to $18,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Pay order to express rider Jonathan Park to warn Congress of arriving British warships, 1776. $20,000 to $30,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Thomas Jefferson, Autograph Letter Signed to Thomas Sim Lee, stating that the government is not authorized to intervene in the Citizen Genêt affair, 1793. $20,000 to $30,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> George Washington, Letter Signed to Nathanael Greene, suggesting a way to obtain money for the Continental Army, 1780. $15,000 to $25,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Andrew Jackson, Autograph Letter Signed to Senator John H. Eaton, on the Seminole Wars & Spain’s duplicity, 1819. $12,000 to $18,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Harry S. Truman, Photograph Signed and Inscribed, showing a false newspaper headline about the 1948 presidential election. $12,000 to $18,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Benjamin Franklin, vellum Document Signed, as President of the Supreme Executive Council of PA, 1786. $8,000 to $12,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Henry Dearborn, two Autograph Manuscript items including a drawing of Bunker’s Hill, unsigned, 1818. $6,000 to $9,000.
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries June 21:</b> Andrew Jackson, <i>A New Map of the United States,</i> lithograph, circa 1828. $3,000 to $4,000.
  • <b>Cowan’s Auctions: American History - Premier Auction. June 22, 2018</b>
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> General George Custer's Officer, James McLean Steele, 1868-1869 Diary. $30,000 - $50,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Exceptionally Rare Anti-Slavery Broadside, “A Crusade Against Slavery”. $4,000 - $6,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Revolutionary War General Richard Montgomery, Exceptionally Rare War-Date ANS. $4,000 - $6,000
    <b>Cowan’s Auctions: American History - Premier Auction. June 22, 2018</b>
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Albumen Photograph of the "Scouts of the Plains," from Cody's Personal Collection. $8,000 - $10,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Jefferson Davis, CDV, Signed and Dated to his Imprisonment in Fortress Monroe. $4,000 - $6,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Robert E. Lee, CDV Signed Twice. $2,000 - $4,000
    <b>Cowan’s Auctions: American History - Premier Auction. June 22, 2018</b>
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> “Si Clack: Co. Q, 100th Indiana Vols.,” Written & Illustrated by Civil War Veteran, P.M. Radford. $2,500 - $3,500
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> General Meade Inspecting the 5th Corps, Civil War-Era Sketch by Alfred R. Waud. $2,000 - $3,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Rare Huey Newton Black Panther Party Poster. $3,000 - $5,000
    <b>Cowan’s Auctions: American History - Premier Auction. June 22, 2018</b>
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Lloyd's New Political Chart, 1861. $800 - $1,200
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> William J. Ferguson, “Our American Cousin” Cast Member, Lincoln Assassination Archive. $8,000 - $10,000
    <b>Cowan’s, June 22:</b> Albert Einstein, Signed Photograph in his Favorite Leather Jacket. $2,000 - $4,000
  • <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Charles Darwin on sexuality and the transmission of hereditary characteristics: Autograph Letter Signed to Lawson Tait. Down, 17 January [1877].
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> MILTON, JOHN. <i>Paradise Lost. A Poem written in ten books.</i> London: 1667. A very rare example with the contemporary binding untouched and with a 1667 title page.
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Hamilton secures the ratification of the Constitution: <i>The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New-York, assembled at Poughkeespsie, on the 17th June, 1788.</i>
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> The social contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”: ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES. <i>Principes du Droit Politique [Du Contract Social]</i>. Amsterdam: Michel Rey, 1762
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> “The first English textbook on geometrical land-measurement and surveying”: BENESE, RICHARD. <i>This Boke Sheweth the Maner of Measurynge All Maner of Lande…</i>

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2018 Issue

The Curtis Census – Locating Every Extant Copy of Edward Curtis' North American Indian

77814bf3-f5b9-4fba-80c7-c3b77ef3275f

In 1906 Edward Curtis took on a massive project. Curtis was a self-taught photographer, a man with no more than an eighth grade education who managed to set up a studio in Seattle doing photographic portraits. Along the way, he met noted anthropologist George Bird Grinnell, who invited him along as a photographer on the Harriman expedition to Alaska in 1899. The following year, Grinnell asked him to visit a Blackfoot tribe in Montana. Curtis' fate was sealed.

 

On returning to Seattle, he began running exhibitions of his photography and publishing magazine articles. He next hatched the idea to produce a mammoth work on America's natives, both text and photographs. Such an undertaking was well beyond his means. Curtis approached someone for whom it was not, J. Pierpont Morgan, one of the richest men in the world. Morgan, who undoubtedly got many such requests, initially brushed him off, but with persistence, Curtis was able to secure $75,000 from Morgan. Indeed, Morgan pushed him to create "the most beautiful set of books ever published."

 

What Curtis produced lived up to Morgan's wishes. The New York Herald called it "the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible." As Curtis explained in his prospectus, the work would consist of 20 volumes of text of approximately 350 pages each, containing 1,500 full-page photographic plates, many hand colored. There would also be 20 portfolios, each with thirty-six 12" x 16" photogravure plates, bringing the number of large photographs to 2,220. The sets would be printed on high quality paper with leather bindings. The regular set would sell for $3,000, the deluxe for $3,850. That amounts to roughly $75,000 and $100,000 today. The foreword was provided by another supporter of the project, the naturalist-conservationist President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.

 

The schedule, Curtis explained, would be three volumes a year, completing the project in seven years, or 1914. Curtis missed that target by a mile. The final volume was released in 1930, 23 rather than seven years later. The project dominated Curtis' life and dissipated his resources. His wife divorced him as he was away for so long. The stock market crash made it impossible to sell more once the project was completed. By 1930, people didn't care much about Indians anymore anyway. His ex-wife sued him for alimony. He required hospitalization after a mental breakdown. He tried to write his memoirs, but they were never published. Curtis died in 1952, broke, he and his work essentially forgotten. It would take another couple of decades before he gained the recognition he has today.

 

More recently, Tim Greyhavens has also taken on a massive project. Perhaps it is not quite so massive as the one undertaken by Curtis, but nonetheless, an enormous challenge of its own, especially since Morgan is no longer around to finance his venture. Greyhavens is trying to find the location of every copy of Curtis' The North American Indian still extant. Many can readily be located in libraries, but not all libraries have records easily available online, and those in private collections are much harder to track down. It has been close to a century now since they left Curtis' hands.

 

Curtis' plan was to produce 500 copies of his set. However, it is believed that no more than 300 were ever produced. Morgan died in 1913, and after that, funding became more difficult. As of this writing, Greyhavens has definitively located 134 copies. He has found historical references to another 170 copies, or 304 if totaled up. However, it is likely some of these are inaccurate, or possibly duplicates. Unfortunately, Curtis was stretched so thin with his work he did not keep records.

 

The sets were supposed to be numbered, with the highest number Greyhavens has found 474. However, there are some significant gaps in the numbering, along with an occasional duplicate, some unnumbered copies, and some with different numbers in different volumes, including one known to be the same as originally received, not a later combined set.

 

We asked Greyhavens what ever led him to get involved in a project of this magnitude. He responded by email, "I’m a data geek at heart, so when I first looked at the numbers (“only” 300 or so possible sets) I thought that it was really a small dataset to take on. I now realize that the number alone is misleading since there are so many intricacies to the publication. Nonetheless, I love a good mystery, and the game is afoot!"

 

It should be noted that in hindsight, Curtis gets some critical reviews. His purpose was noble in that he wanted to preserve what was still left of native culture now a century or more under the influence of non-indigenous society. He naturally saw Indians through the eyes of a white man, at times staging photographs to be consistent with what he believed to be accurate. Still, none of this diminishes the fact that he created an enormous trove of data and photography of America's natives earlier than anyone else on this level, preserving much of their history and culture that would otherwise have been lost.

 

Greyhavens project is called the Curtis Census. There is a wonderful, detailed website he has created, www.curtiscensus.com. You will learn much about Curtis and his book from it. Most importantly, you will find a current census of the books he has found (and other copies he thinks still exist), with details such as where they are located, condition, original subscriber, original cost, and sequence number. He also has a favor to ask of those who share his enthusiasm for Curtis and his census. He is seeking volunteers for the project, and of particular note, if you are aware of a copy not on his census, such as one in private hands, he would especially like to hear. There is a contact form to reach him on the census website.

 

Link to the Curtis Census: www.curtiscensus.com

Rare Book Monthly

  • <b>Sotheby’s Online, June 18 - 28:</b> Lewis, Meriwether, and William Clark. <i>History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, To the Sources of the Missouri…</i> 1814, first edition. $100,000 to $150,000
    <b>Sotheby’s Online, June 18 - 28:</b> Poe, Edgar Allan. <i>Tales.</i> New York: Wiley And Putnam, 1845. First edition, first printing, first issue. $70,000 to $100,000
    <b>Sotheby’s Online, June 18 - 28:</b> Dürer, Albrecht, and Johann Stabius. [Map of the World as a Sphere.] [Vienna,] 1781 (From Woodblocks Cut In 1515). $120,000 to $180,000
    <b>Sotheby’s Online, June 18 - 28:</b> Ferdinand, Franz — Lala Deen Dayal [Photographer]. VISIT OF H.I. & H.R. THE ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND OF AUSTRIA ESTE TO HYDERABAD (DECCAN), JANUARY 1893. $4,000 to $6,000
    <b>Sotheby’s Online, June 18 - 28:</b> Lincoln, Abraham. Manuscript Letter Signed ("Yours Truly A. Lincoln") as Sixteenth President to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles Regarding William Johnson. $200,000 to $300,000
  • <center><b>TIMED ONLINE AUCTION<br>June 11 - 25, 2018</b></center>
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> ACCADEMIA ERCOLANENSE DI ARCHEOLOGIA. <i>Ornati delle Pareti</i>, Naples 1796. £2,000 to £3,000
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> AMERICAS. <i>Il Gazzettiere Americano…</i>, Livorno, 1763. £2,000 to £3,000
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> BARROW, John. <i>Travels in China…</i>, London, 1804. £600 to £800
    <center><b>TIMED ONLINE AUCTION<br>June 11 - 25, 2018</b></center>
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> BENOIST, Felix. <i>Album de L'Ile de Jersey</i>…, Paris & Nantes, 1870. £1,500 to £2,000
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> GAIL, Wilhelm. <i>Erinnerungen aus Spanien,</i> Munchen, [ca. 1837]. £1,800 to £2,200
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> HANCARVILLE, Pierre d'. <i>Recherches sur l'origine…,</i> London, Appleyard, 1785. £1,5000 to £2,000
    <center><b>TIMED ONLINE AUCTION<br>June 11 - 25, 2018</b></center>
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> HULLEY, T. <i>Six Views of Cheltenham.</i> London, R. Ackerman, 1813. £800 to £1,200
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> JEFFERSON, Thomas. <i>Notes on the state of Virginia</i>…, London, 1787. £12,000 to £18,000
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> LEWIS, John F. <i>Lewis's illustrations of Constantinople…,</i> London, McLean, 1837. £3,000 to £4,000
    <center><b>TIMED ONLINE AUCTION<br>June 11 - 25, 2018</b></center>
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> MARQUARD, Johann. <i>Tractatus politico-juridicus,</i> Frankfurt, 1662. £1,800 to £2,200
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> MAUND, Benjamin. <i>The botanic garden,</i> London, 1825-42. £1,500 to £2,000
    <b>Mayfair Book Auctions, Jun 11 - 25:</b> Willughby, Francis; John Ray (ed.). <i>Ornithologiæ libri tres</i>. London, John Martyn, 1676. £1,500 to £2,000

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions
http://rarebookhub.com/articles/2383
rarebookhub.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-26
108909
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:TLUQNEJGD4IPTV447URI2UGNGRIVRGEQ
<urn:uuid:6c7e1909-a1fe-4183-86fa-b254ccf87ef5>
2018-06-19T00:53:14Z
54.225.48.124
text/html
sha1:CJQWJU7XCVDGKX6DNCXZXARGC5PAM4J3
<urn:uuid:7175b24f-aafd-4f67-858f-78ed25009a26>
http://rarebookhub.com/articles/2383
response
<urn:uuid:83e75fc2-eccc-4f49-9e42-5e94d11eb911>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-65-172-186.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-26
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for June 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf