Auction Highlights: Fine Books — April 22, 2025

Timed Auction — Bidding Now Open!
Lots begin closing Tuesday, April 22 at 12 pm eastern.

Catalogue & Bidding
Lot 124: Henri Courvoisier-Voisin, et alia, [Recueil de Vues de Paris et ses Environs], depicting precursors of the modern roller coaster, Paris: Chez Basset marchand d’estampes, [1814-1819?]. Estimate $2,000 to $3,000.

We are lucky to feature a well-balanced sale this spring, with offerings in all major categories of rare book collecting. The sale kicks off with an interesting travel section featuring dozens of early and illustrated books with an emphasis on travel to the Holy Land. Early printed books from Incunabula to early modern will give bidders a chance to add to their collections. Art books also make a strong showing, with signed copies of books illustrated by Picasso, Miro, Calder, Delaunay and many others, including a deluxe signed set of Derriere le Miroir volumes in custom slipcases.

Bibliophiles will also be pleased to find the fine bindings, press books, and a fabulous group of finely bound and illustrated editions of the Omar Khayyam. Literature fans can browse important first editions and important signed works by nineteenth and twentieth-century authors. The sale ends with science, medicine and technology. We are very pleased to present the first 50 lots in the collection of the late Owen Gingerich, Harvard Astronomy Professor and book collector extraordinaire. Keep an eye out for more of Professor Gingerich’s collection next fall.

Lot 148: Pablo Picasso & Fernando de Rojas, La Célestine, First Edition, Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier Crommelynck, 1971. Estimate $30,000 to $40,000.
Lot 201: Omar Khayyam & Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat, William Bell Scott’s copy of the First Edition, London: Bernard Quaritch, 1859. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.
Lot 223: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, First Edition, extra-illustrated with hand-colored plates by Palinthorpe, First Issue, London: Chapman and Hall, 1861. Estimate $7,000 to $9,000.
Lot 248: L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, First Edition, inscribed by the illustrator, Chicago & New York: Geo. M. Hill Co., 1900. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.
Lot 305: Tycho Brahe & Pierre Gassendi, Tychonis Brahei Vita, with manuscript presentation leaf from another volume in Brahe’s hand inserted, Paris: Apud Viduam Mathurini Dupuis, 1654. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.
Lot 338: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Almagestum Novum, two folio volumes, Bologna: Haeredis Victorii Benatii, 1651. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. Estimate $8,000 to $10,000.
Lot 350: Tobias Cohn, Ma’aseh Toviyyah, first edition, Venice: Bragadin, 1707-8. Estimate $3,000 to $5,000.
Lot 359: Alan Turing, Computing, Machinery, and Intelligence, published in Mind: a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, first edition of Turing’s essays posing the question, “Can machines think?”, Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1950. Estimate $3,000 to $5,000.
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April 8, 2025
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Category: Fine Books & Manuscripts
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