A Look Inside the Catalogue: 19th & 20th Century Literature

At Auction November 13

Complete Catalogue

Highlights

A first edition of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf, 1904, debuts at auction in its exceedingly rare dust jacket (known by rumor, if at all). Examples from the nineteenth century are led by “the highest of the high spots,” the first printing of the first edition of Tales, 1845, by Edgar Allan Poe. Also crossing the block is an uncommon salesman’s dummy for the Edition de Luxe of Mark Twain’s Writings, 1899. Attractive library sets will be offered as well, with Henry David Thoreau’s The Writings, 1906, incorporating a manuscript excerpt from Autumnal Hints.

Al Hirschfeld’s Copy of Hemingway’s First Book

Lot 145: Ernest Hemingway, Three Stories & Ten Poems, first edition, ex-collection of Al Hirschfeld, Paris, 1923. Estimate $18,000 to $25,000.

First Edition of Toni Morrison’s First Book

Lot 221: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, first edition, review copy, signed, New York, 1970. Estimate $3,500 to $5,000.

Transcendentalists

Lot 278: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, author’s edition, signed by Whitman, Camden, 1876. Estimate $3,500 to $5,000.

Lot 261: Henry David Thoreau, The Writings, manuscript edition in original binding, 20 volumes, Boston, 1906. Estimate $7,000 to $10,000.

Lot 106: Ralph Waldo Emerson, May-Day and Other Pieces, first edition, signed & inscribed by the author to his nephew, Boston, 1867. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.

Classics

Lot 244: J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, first edition in unrestored first issue dust jacket, 1951. Estimate $7,000 to $10,000.

Lot 229: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, first edition, 1949. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.

Science Fiction & Recent Literature

Further selections of imaginative literature from the Estate of Stanley Simon will be offered, with works by Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, including many signed deluxe-issue lettered editions. A superb sampling of Philip K. Dick material boasts two signed presentation copies, and one of only three special sets of The Collected Stories, 1987.

Lot 24: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, group of three typescripts, signed & inscribed by the author. Estimate $800 to $1,200.

Lot 272: David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, first edition, first issue dust jacket, Boston, 1996. Estimate $1,000 to $1,500.

Other titles of more recent vintage include runs of signed firsts by Cormac McCarthy and David Foster Wallace. A dedicated children’s literature section features a first edition of Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester, 1902.

Complete Catalogue

For more information on the sale, contact Specialist John D. Larson in the Books department.

Consign with Swann