AE Monthly

<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

Article Archives Search

AE Articles


In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More - By Michael Stillman Abraham Lincoln writes Mrs. Horace Mann's schoolchildren. By Michael Stillman A fabulous Lincoln letter, magnificent both for its content and price, broke all kinds of U.S. auction records at Sotheby's last month. The President wrote the 1864 letter in response to a petition he had received from schoolchildren in the Concord, Massachusetts, class of Mary Mann, widow of famed educator and abolitionist Horace Mann. Their petition was headed "Petition of the children of the United States; (under 18 years) that the President will free all slave children." In his reply, Lincoln writes, "Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it." If it sounds odd that Lincoln was not willing to free slaves in 1864, long after the Emancipation Proclamation, it must be remembered that the Proclamation only freed slaves in states in rebellion against the United States. Slavery was still legal in the border Union states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia. This letter was sold for a record price of $3,401,000. Sotheby's noted that this was not only a record price for a Lincoln manuscript, but for any presidential or any American manuscript ever sold at auction. It was sold to an unnamed American telephone bidder. Another Lincoln highlight from the auction was the only known signature of the President signed at Gettysburg the day of his inspirational address. Lincoln's signature, along with those of a few other notables in attendance, such as Secretary of State William Seward, was written in a souvenir album. The album sold for $937,000. Another most notable letter came from an imprisoned John Brown, two weeks before his hanging. He reiterates the justness of his abolitionist cause, and makes an interesting point about his jailor, who fought bravely to capture Brown, but then evidently received much grief for treating him humanely. Pens Brown, "Cowards prove their courage by their ferocity. It may be done in that way with but little risk." Brown's letter sold for $82,000. In all, the American manuscript auction took in $5,649,330. BookFinder, the multi-site book search engine, released a survey to make a point about bargains. They searched ten recent bestsellers on their site and did a comparison with the list prices. On average, they found used copies of recent books could be located online for 60% off the original price. They compared this to the 6% discount offered by a leading chain. At the top of the list was the most recent Harry Potter saga, that had people lined up at bookstores at midnight a few months back for the honor of paying the retail price of $34.99. BookFinder found copies as low as $6.73. BookFinder noted that unlike many other book sites, they provide prices which include shipping, so that 81% discount on Harry Potter is real.
In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More - By Michael Stillman Via Libri adds eight new sites to its search engine. Via Libri, another multi-site book search engine, announced that it has added eight new sites to the group it searches. According to a news release from the firm, the additional sites searched "now establishes it [Via Libri] as the world's largest internet marketplace for old and rare books." Via Libri states it now reaches the online listings of over 20,000 booksellers with combined inventories of over 150 million books. The multi-site search engines search the listings of numerous different book-listing sites and combine all of their results. The largest addition comes from five Amazon sites Via Libri now searches: American, Canadian, British, French and German. The other newly searched sites are IOBABooks, Spanish site Uniliber, and British based Biblion. AbeBooks released its top 10 most expensive books for March, and while there is nothing on the level of a Lincoln letter here, any one of these sales would have made for a most pleasant day for the average bookseller. This month's subjects include math and chemistry, poetry, what was once the future, and a bridge to somewhere. 10. The Ascent of Everest by John Hunt, published in 1953, and signed by 40 climbers. One was Edmund Hillary, better remembered than expedition leader Hunt, because he made it to the top. $5,000. 9. Five Go to Smuggler's Top, a 1945 first edition of number four in author Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. $5,038. 8. Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, a virtually complete set of 372 volumes of Leopold Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, published from 1926-1984. No light reading here. $5,284. 7. Anthropos. Revue Internationale d'Ethnographie et de Linguistique. This set contains a mere 60 volumes of the International Journal of Anthropology and Linguistics. $5,458. 6. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's look at the future from 1949, when this first edition, first printing was published. $6,780. 5. Merely Connect, a 1994 book with a very short print run by author Salmon Rushdie and artist Tom Philips, signed by both. $7,325. 4. An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Suspension Bridge Constructed over the Menai Strait in North Wales... an 1828 elephant folio first edition about a bridge linking the island of Anglesey with Wales, by Thomas Telford. $7,614.
In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More - By Michael Stillman 3. Out of the Silent Planet, a first edition by Narnia's own C.S. Lewis, one of his earliest and rarest works, published in 1938. $7,950. 2. Poems (1909-1925) by T.S. Eliot, one of 85 numbered copies signed by Eliot. $8,500. 1. The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by, of course, Euclid, in a Chiswick Press edition of 1847 that has been described as "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the century." It was designed to simplify Euclid's propositions. $11,750. A sad story from Florida reminds us of a basic truth about the rare and antiquarian book field. A house fire destroyed much of the collection of old Southeast Asian books of Ken Davis of Holmes Beach. He had spent many years building the collection, which he hoped to someday give to an Asian library. What this points out is the basic reality: like real estate, they aren't making any more antiquarian books. The number in existence can only go down. That point has been obscured in recent years by the development of the internet, which has brought many forgotten copies of old books out of the woodwork. Nonetheless, old books can only become rarer. The number of copies of the books in Davis' Asian collection still in existence has just been reduced by one.

In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More

- By Michael Stillman

Abraham Lincoln writes Mrs. Horace Mann's schoolchildren.

By Michael Stillman

A fabulous Lincoln letter, magnificent both for its content and price, broke all kinds of U.S. auction records at Sotheby's last month. The President wrote the 1864 letter in response to a petition he had received from schoolchildren in the Concord, Massachusetts, class of Mary Mann, widow of famed educator and abolitionist Horace Mann. Their petition was headed "Petition of the children of the United States; (under 18 years) that the President will free all slave children." In his reply, Lincoln writes, "Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it." If it sounds odd that Lincoln was not willing to free slaves in 1864, long after the Emancipation Proclamation, it must be remembered that the Proclamation only freed slaves in states in rebellion against the United States. Slavery was still legal in the border Union states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia.

This letter was sold for a record price of $3,401,000. Sotheby's noted that this was not only a record price for a Lincoln manuscript, but for any presidential or any American manuscript ever sold at auction. It was sold to an unnamed American telephone bidder.

Another Lincoln highlight from the auction was the only known signature of the President signed at Gettysburg the day of his inspirational address. Lincoln's signature, along with those of a few other notables in attendance, such as Secretary of State William Seward, was written in a souvenir album. The album sold for $937,000. Another most notable letter came from an imprisoned John Brown, two weeks before his hanging. He reiterates the justness of his abolitionist cause, and makes an interesting point about his jailor, who fought bravely to capture Brown, but then evidently received much grief for treating him humanely. Pens Brown, "Cowards prove their courage by their ferocity. It may be done in that way with but little risk." Brown's letter sold for $82,000. In all, the American manuscript auction took in $5,649,330.

BookFinder, the multi-site book search engine, released a survey to make a point about bargains. They searched ten recent bestsellers on their site and did a comparison with the list prices. On average, they found used copies of recent books could be located online for 60% off the original price. They compared this to the 6% discount offered by a leading chain. At the top of the list was the most recent Harry Potter saga, that had people lined up at bookstores at midnight a few months back for the honor of paying the retail price of $34.99. BookFinder found copies as low as $6.73. BookFinder noted that unlike many other book sites, they provide prices which include shipping, so that 81% discount on Harry Potter is real.

In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More

- By Michael Stillman

Via Libri adds eight new sites to its search engine.

Via Libri, another multi-site book search engine, announced that it has added eight new sites to the group it searches. According to a news release from the firm, the additional sites searched "now establishes it [Via Libri] as the world's largest internet marketplace for old and rare books." Via Libri states it now reaches the online listings of over 20,000 booksellers with combined inventories of over 150 million books.

The multi-site search engines search the listings of numerous different book-listing sites and combine all of their results. The largest addition comes from five Amazon sites Via Libri now searches: American, Canadian, British, French and German. The other newly searched sites are IOBABooks, Spanish site Uniliber, and British based Biblion.

AbeBooks released its top 10 most expensive books for March, and while there is nothing on the level of a Lincoln letter here, any one of these sales would have made for a most pleasant day for the average bookseller. This month's subjects include math and chemistry, poetry, what was once the future, and a bridge to somewhere.

10. The Ascent of Everest by John Hunt, published in 1953, and signed by 40 climbers. One was Edmund Hillary, better remembered than expedition leader Hunt, because he made it to the top. $5,000.

9. Five Go to Smuggler's Top, a 1945 first edition of number four in author Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. $5,038.

8. Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, a virtually complete set of 372 volumes of Leopold Gmelin's Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, published from 1926-1984. No light reading here. $5,284.

7. Anthropos. Revue Internationale d'Ethnographie et de Linguistique. This set contains a mere 60 volumes of the International Journal of Anthropology and Linguistics. $5,458.

6. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's look at the future from 1949, when this first edition, first printing was published. $6,780.

5. Merely Connect, a 1994 book with a very short print run by author Salmon Rushdie and artist Tom Philips, signed by both. $7,325.

4. An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Suspension Bridge Constructed over the Menai Strait in North Wales... an 1828 elephant folio first edition about a bridge linking the island of Anglesey with Wales, by Thomas Telford. $7,614.

In The News: The Most Expensive American Letter Ever Auctioned, BookFinder, Via Libri & More

- By Michael Stillman

3. Out of the Silent Planet, a first edition by Narnia's own C.S. Lewis, one of his earliest and rarest works, published in 1938. $7,950.

2. Poems (1909-1925) by T.S. Eliot, one of 85 numbered copies signed by Eliot. $8,500.

1. The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by, of course, Euclid, in a Chiswick Press edition of 1847 that has been described as "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the century." It was designed to simplify Euclid's propositions. $11,750.

A sad story from Florida reminds us of a basic truth about the rare and antiquarian book field. A house fire destroyed much of the collection of old Southeast Asian books of Ken Davis of Holmes Beach. He had spent many years building the collection, which he hoped to someday give to an Asian library. What this points out is the basic reality: like real estate, they aren't making any more antiquarian books. The number in existence can only go down. That point has been obscured in recent years by the development of the internet, which has brought many forgotten copies of old books out of the woodwork. Nonetheless, old books can only become rarer. The number of copies of the books in Davis' Asian collection still in existence has just been reduced by one.