Including autographs by Kurt Cobain, Pancho Villa, Mark Twain, as well as pristine first editions featuring Virginia Woolf and others; fine art books featuring Robert Indiana and Gustav Klimt.
This October’s Early Printed Books sale featuring travel, medicine, and science offers another chance for rare book buyers to travel through time and around the world to shop for historically and culturally significant works and objects. We are pleased to present a curated selection of Renaissance and early modern printing, including scholarly editions of Greek and Latin classics; manuscripts and early printing; a curated selection of medical works; and books that document global contributions to our shared culture.
Early Printed Book, Archives, Vernacular and Fine Art Photography, Among other Material, Draws Interest Among Collectors The house’s inaugural Focus on Women sale on Thursday, July 15, 2021 brought $333,893…
Ahead of Swann’s first auction dedicated to the accomplishments of women on July 15, senior specialist and curator of the sale, Devon Eastland, sat down with author, historian and collector…
What You Need to Know on Auction Day This auction will be held live and conducted remotely. There will not be bidding in the room, though we accept order bids,…
The autographs portion of the June 17, 2021 auction includes uncommonly inspiring items in nearly every major category of collecting. Below Marco Tomaschett shares a selection of highlights. Americana Among…
Autographs Literature & Art Books What You Need to Know on Auction Day This auction will be held live and conducted remotely. There will not be bidding in the room,…
As collectors and institutions turn their focus to the important contributions of women, Swann is pleased to feature their work at auction. We are seeking consignments that highlight the stories of all those in the community who identify as women in the fields of activism, art and design, community, education, entertainment, health and wellness, science and innovation, sport, and work. The auction will feature first editions, handwritten manuscript material, archives, and works on paper by historically significant poets, novelists, scientists, journalists, photographers, playwrights, performers and beyond.
At Auction May 12, 2021 This special offering of deaccessioned duplicates from the rich collection of Letterform Archive will bring to auction graphics, books, posters and examples of typography that…
Our April 15, 2021 auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana opens with a noteworthy collection of historical prints which spins a narrative of America stretching from the arrival of Columbus to the…
Bibliographers, cataloguers, and scholars rely upon the veracity of a book’s imprint—that is, the publication information provided by the printer on the title page, and includes the following: city of…
Featuring illuminated manuscripts, including an ornate Book of Hours, Use in Utrecht, and a robust section of important early scientific texts by Nicolaus Copernicus, Euclid, and Johann Zahn. Medical volumes include a first edition of Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, among others.
Featuring material relating to Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Phillis Wheatley, Katherine Dunham, Kool Lance, and more.
Water vessels played a critical role in shaping the early history of America. That U.S. maritime history is brief relative to some other nations is an advantage, because many artifacts…
John Larson on the cinematic history of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ An immediate success upon its publication in 1957, Jack Kerouac’s second book, On the Road, has maintained a…
Featuring fine autographs by Frederick Douglass, Albert Einstein, James Dean, John F. Kennedy, Lord Byron, Richard Wagner, alongside literature and art books by Joseph Albers, Leonetto Cappiello, Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway, Ralph Ellison, and more.
On February 4, 2021, Swann offered: The Artists of the WPA. The first iteration of the multi-departmental sale, featured paintings, prints, photographs, posters, books and related ephemera by artists whose…
In a year that was unlike any in our lifetimes, Swann’s specialists and staff proved to be as resilient and innovative as ever, bringing forward new and safe ways to…
The Audubon name is synonymous with art of the natural world. Most renowned for his iconic Birds of America, master naturalist John James Audubon expectantly encouraged and cultivated his two…
Jane Austen Leads Fine Books & Manuscripts at Swann Our Tuesday, November 17, 2020, sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts saw great success across categories with a 90% sell-through rate…
One’s handwriting is unique unto oneself. For some, the style can remain consistent throughout the years. For others, the features that characterize their handwriting can change depending on circumstance, and…
October brings out the inner ghoul in all of us. Our Literature Specialist, John Larson, compiled a fantasy starter collection for those interested in fantasmagoria. The Vampyre; A Tale by…
Featuring Major Works by Jane Austen & Charles Dickens, Autographs & Manuscript Items from John Hancock, Igor Stravinsky & more
Early Printed Books, at auction October 27, 2020, featuring sought-after early imprints, incunabula, North American early exploration texts, medical books and more.
Our Thursday, September 24, 2020 sale of Printed & Manuscript Americana brought an 82% sell-through rate by lot, totaling over $600k with at least 23 institutions purchasing a total of…
Join Us October 5, 2020 at 7PM ET for a fascinating, terrifying look at the rarest books―bound in human skin―and the stories of their creation.
What Goes Around Comes Around Devon Eastland shares the joys of handling early printed books and how sometimes unexpected pieces of history can crop up. As a business with a…
In a two-part series Marco Tomaschett, our autographs specialist, takes us through a few autographs by prominent people in history in our July 30 sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts.
In a two-part series Marco Tomaschett, our autographs specialist, takes us through a few autographs by prominent people in history in our July 30 sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts.
Any experienced cataloger, scholar, collector, or reader of early printing is accustomed to discovering an array of random objects within the pages of books. Even though some of these tidbits may have fallen out of ancient beards, today we celebrate and study them and put them into categories. Devon Eastland, senior specialist for early printed books, provides a handy glossary for these curious items found within various books.
Find here a plethora of autographs, fine art books, modern first editions, incunabula, manuscripts and more, at auction July 30, 2020.
Probably the most common question we get in the Americana department is “I found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence—is it worth anything?” The short answer: it’s worth somewhere…
As a bibliophile expands their collection, they gain a feel for auction house and bookseller’s catalogues, which often include terminology that may seem arcane. However, every character in a complex catalogue entry is used to describe the object being sold. For early printed books, some of the most essential things a specialist must note are the size of the book, its collation, and its condition. In order to understand how a book is described, some knowledge of bookbinding fundamentals is helpful. Here, Devon Eastland, our senior specialist for early printed books, dives into how a book is sewn.
Or, WTſ? It’s a common source of confusion: “I have this book, and it’s really old, and all of the s’s are f’s, so I know it’s really old. It’s called Paradife Loft, by John Milton.”
The value of diaries on the market is largely driven by historical content and the quality of the writing. What could your diary be worth?
William Sydney Porter, best known to posterity as the author O. Henry, was raised in North Carolina and moved west to Texas as a young man in 1882. After a stint on a sheep ranch, he settled in Austin, TX, where he worked various odd jobs while exploring his interest in writing and drawing. Our winter-spring 2020 sale of Printed & Manuscript Americana on March 10 is set to offer O. Henry’s first professional commission. Here, Rick Stattler, the house’s Americana specialist, tells the story of the mining memoir that never came to be.
Swann Galleries saw a successful sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts on Thursday, February 20 with literature and autographs bringing strong numbers.
For the first time in nearly a decade, first editions all six of Jane Austen’s major novels will be offered in our winter 2020 sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts on February 20. The novels are set to come across the block in exceedingly rare period bindings, just as Austen herself would have seen them published, with half-title pages. Here we touch on the offering and what makes a first edition Austen novel special.
Sarojini Naidu was an Indian writer and politician, born in Hyderabad, India in 1879. She wrote widely admired, moving, musical poetry in English, having both British and Indian subject matter,…
With the 2020 auction season on the horizon, we sat down with the newest addition to our books and manuscripts department, Devon Eastland, senior specialist for early printed books, to discuss all things books and material culture.
First editions of all of Jane Austen’s major novels, over 20 inscribed first editions by Graham Greene, autographmaterial from Walt Whitman, Napoleon and Princess Diana.
Swann Galleries closed out the decade with a marathon sale of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books on Tuesday, December 17. The auction brought $910,087 and saw a 93% sell-through rate. Highlights included rare cartographic publications from Hawaii, atlases from across the globe and historic prints.
Our Thursday, October 24 sale of Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books saw a full auction room and active bidding on the internet and phones with a particular interest in publications by scientists, as well as incunabula, bibles and manuscript publications.
Born in London in 1606, John Bulwer was an important figure in the study of deafness, gesture and the human body and a pioneer the education of the deaf in England. He published five works on the subject before his death in 1656. Set to come across the block are three first editions of Bulwer’s publications.
We brought forth a remarkable offering of autographs, art, press and illustrated books, as well as nineteenth and twentieth-century literature, in a Thursday, October 10 sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts.
Bibliophiles of every denomination—Americana, autographs, art books, archives, atlases, ephemera, literature, maps—can find their niche at Swann Galleries. Originally founded in New York as a book auction house, we hold regular specialized sales devoted to books, printed material and manuscripts.
Two volumes from Herman Melville’s personal library come to auction at Swann Galleries October 10.
A choice selection of incunabula brings to auction infrequently seen editions of Johannes Jacobus Canis’s 1476 guide to the study of civil and canon law; Albertus Magnus’s comprehensive lapidary De mineralibus, Pavia, 1491; and Philippus Beroaldus’s philosophical tract on happiness, De felicitate opusculum, Bologna, 1495.
Before being moved to its permanent home at the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections, a choice selection of works from the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry—the most comprehensive collection of its kind—will be offered at Swann Galleries on October 10.
Remarkable firsts in unrestored dust jackets by Barnaby Ross, Owen Wister, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, plus well-loved titles by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut comprise this fall 2019 selection of literature.
![Grace Meschery-McCormack shares about two copies of Fernando de Rojas’s ‘La Célestine,’ including a limited edition copy illustrated by Pablo Picasso.
At auction April 22. Learn more about the works at the link in our bio.
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