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

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In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10 - By Michael Stillman The first telephone book, Copernicus' heliocentric universe. Courtesy of Christie's. By Michael Stillman One of the most important auctions of scientific books, the Richard Green Library, took place at Christie's in New York on June 17. The auction set price records for many authors, including Galileo, but most attention was focused on a seemingly mundane item, a simple telephone book. There must be tens if not hundreds of millions of these massive books printed every year. Twelve months later they are in the trash. So why would anyone pay $170,500 for a telephone book? The answer is that this is the very first telephone book ever published. It followed the invention of the telephone by just two years. Alexander Graham Bell invented his life-altering device in 1876. While the first long-distance lines were laid the following year, it was not until 1878 that the first commercially available phone system began operation. That was the Connecticut District Telephone Company of New Haven. They ran wires from their subscribers to a central office, enabling communications from one customer to another. While an initial list of 50 subscribers (now lost) is believed to have been published in February 1878, this publication dated November of that year is the first true telephone book. Christie's was not able to locate any other copies of this first edition of the first phone book still in existence. This book contained an alphabetical listing of 391 subscribers plus an addendum of 16 more names, advertisements, some essays on the telephone and related equipment (such as the microphone), an essay on "Progress in Electric Lighting," and instructions on using this new device. Some of these include, "you should...commence the conversation by saying 'Hulloa!' When you are done talking, say 'That is all!'" There's nothing about text messaging. Others include, "While talking, always speak slow and distinct, and let the telephone rest lightly against your upper lip, leaving the lower lip and the jaw free..." Rules include no calls lasting more than three minutes and no more than two calls an hour (these are still good rules). Any use of profane language is to be reported to the telephone company immediately. While the first phone book was the most curious item at the auction, it was hardly the most expensive. The Green Library took in a total of $11,019,688, or $38,130 on average for each of the lots sold. The top price was $2,210,500 for De revolutionibus orbium colestium, libri V by Copernicus, from 1543. This is the work in which the great astronomer proclaimed that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe, and explained the planet's rotation and revolution around the sun. The second highest price was for Arte de navegar by Pedro de Medina, published in 1545, which sold for $578,500. This very rare original edition is considered the first practical treatise on navigation and includes the map first showing the papal demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese America. Third was Le operazioni del compasso geometrico, et militare... by Galileo, published in 1606. This is the extremely rare privately printed first work of Galileo, published in only 60 copies. It sold for $506,500. Other names in the ten highest prices were Kepler, Einstein, Darwin and Cellarius.
In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10 - By Michael Stillman Jane Austen hair memorial, from Dominic Winter. In a more unusual sale, a lock of hair, believed to come from novelist Jane Austen (though not conclusively so) sold at a Dominic Winter auction on June 18 for £5,640 (roughly $11,000). The hair was fashioned to look like a weeping willow tree, a symbol of death and resurrection, rising over a gravestone with the name "Jane Austen" spelled out in hair. Winter noted that since the provenance of the item can only be traced back 20 years, it can't be said for certain whether this is Ms. Austen's hair, or even whether it is the same Jane Austen, but the age appears right, and the cost of making it implies that the person was of importance, as Ms. Austen certainly was. Antiquariaat Plantijn of Breda, the Netherlands, recently launched their own website. The firm is hardly new to bookselling, having been formed by Dieter Duncker over 30 years ago. Antiquariaat Plantijn opened its storefront in Breda in 2001, and its growth has now led to the very attractive and well-designed website now available. They feature a large and diverse collection of antique maps, along with decorative prints, illustrated books, books on travel from the 16th through mid-19th century, manuscripts, and more. You may find their new website at www.plantijnmaps.com. May's top 10 sales on AbeBooks featured multiple collections of etchings, along with works on architecture, chemistry, law, and the Malay Archipelago. Add fairy tales, poetry and more, and here we go. 10. The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, a presentation copy of the 1869 first edition in which the noted naturalist chronicles the exploration of the area. $4,869. 9. The Collected Poems by D.H. Lawrence, one of 100 copies of a signed, limited edition published in 1928. $4,893. 8. A Room of One's Own, a 1929 signed, limited first edition of Virginia Woolf's essay on feminism. $4,950. 7. The Four Books of Architecture by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. This is a first French edition from 1640, which includes the woodcuts from the original Italian edition of 1570. Palladio was enormously influential in the field of Western architecture. $5,844. 6. English Etchings, an 8-volume collection of etched works by English artists including William Strang, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Short, Percy Thomas, Herbert Marshall, Robert Currie, Buxton Knight and Oliver Baker. $5,867. 5. The Library or Treasury of French Law, a 1615 compilation of French laws by lawyer Laurent Bouchel. $6,356. 4. Traité élémentaire de Chimie, a second printing of the treatise on elementary chemistry originally printed in 1789 by the "father of modern chemistry," Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier. $7,709.
In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10 - By Michael Stillman Combination potato chip canister/burial urn. 3. Atlas der Krystallformen by Victor Goldschmidt, an 18-volume set by the man considered to be the father of modern geochemistry. $8,500. 2. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, a first edition, first issue with 22 etched plates by George Cruikshank. $11,388. 1. Etudes à l'Eau-Forte, a collection of 25 etchings by Francis Seymour Hayden. $17,216. Finally, we have a story that does not relate to books, but is close enough for mention here as it does relate to printed ephemera. Specifically, we are talking about the Pringles can, home to those neatly stackable reconstituted potato chips. Pringles did for potato chips what McDonalds did for hamburgers. The designer of this ingenious packaging system, Frederic Baur, recently died at the age of 89, and in keeping with his wishes, part of his cremated remains were buried in a Pringles can. We are aware of no other coffins or burial urns which feature a printed label. So now Baur's neatly stacked, reconstituted remains can be found in one of his landmark cylinders, and all of us, worried about the high cost of burial, have a new, inexpensive option to consider.

In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10

- By Michael Stillman

The first telephone book, Copernicus' heliocentric universe. Courtesy of Christie's.

By Michael Stillman

One of the most important auctions of scientific books, the Richard Green Library, took place at Christie's in New York on June 17. The auction set price records for many authors, including Galileo, but most attention was focused on a seemingly mundane item, a simple telephone book. There must be tens if not hundreds of millions of these massive books printed every year. Twelve months later they are in the trash. So why would anyone pay $170,500 for a telephone book? The answer is that this is the very first telephone book ever published. It followed the invention of the telephone by just two years.

Alexander Graham Bell invented his life-altering device in 1876. While the first long-distance lines were laid the following year, it was not until 1878 that the first commercially available phone system began operation. That was the Connecticut District Telephone Company of New Haven. They ran wires from their subscribers to a central office, enabling communications from one customer to another. While an initial list of 50 subscribers (now lost) is believed to have been published in February 1878, this publication dated November of that year is the first true telephone book. Christie's was not able to locate any other copies of this first edition of the first phone book still in existence.

This book contained an alphabetical listing of 391 subscribers plus an addendum of 16 more names, advertisements, some essays on the telephone and related equipment (such as the microphone), an essay on "Progress in Electric Lighting," and instructions on using this new device. Some of these include, "you should...commence the conversation by saying 'Hulloa!' When you are done talking, say 'That is all!'" There's nothing about text messaging. Others include, "While talking, always speak slow and distinct, and let the telephone rest lightly against your upper lip, leaving the lower lip and the jaw free..." Rules include no calls lasting more than three minutes and no more than two calls an hour (these are still good rules). Any use of profane language is to be reported to the telephone company immediately.

While the first phone book was the most curious item at the auction, it was hardly the most expensive. The Green Library took in a total of $11,019,688, or $38,130 on average for each of the lots sold. The top price was $2,210,500 for De revolutionibus orbium colestium, libri V by Copernicus, from 1543. This is the work in which the great astronomer proclaimed that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe, and explained the planet's rotation and revolution around the sun. The second highest price was for Arte de navegar by Pedro de Medina, published in 1545, which sold for $578,500. This very rare original edition is considered the first practical treatise on navigation and includes the map first showing the papal demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese America. Third was Le operazioni del compasso geometrico, et militare... by Galileo, published in 1606. This is the extremely rare privately printed first work of Galileo, published in only 60 copies. It sold for $506,500. Other names in the ten highest prices were Kepler, Einstein, Darwin and Cellarius.

In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10

- By Michael Stillman

Jane Austen hair memorial, from Dominic Winter.

In a more unusual sale, a lock of hair, believed to come from novelist Jane Austen (though not conclusively so) sold at a Dominic Winter auction on June 18 for £5,640 (roughly $11,000). The hair was fashioned to look like a weeping willow tree, a symbol of death and resurrection, rising over a gravestone with the name "Jane Austen" spelled out in hair. Winter noted that since the provenance of the item can only be traced back 20 years, it can't be said for certain whether this is Ms. Austen's hair, or even whether it is the same Jane Austen, but the age appears right, and the cost of making it implies that the person was of importance, as Ms. Austen certainly was.

Antiquariaat Plantijn of Breda, the Netherlands, recently launched their own website. The firm is hardly new to bookselling, having been formed by Dieter Duncker over 30 years ago. Antiquariaat Plantijn opened its storefront in Breda in 2001, and its growth has now led to the very attractive and well-designed website now available. They feature a large and diverse collection of antique maps, along with decorative prints, illustrated books, books on travel from the 16th through mid-19th century, manuscripts, and more. You may find their new website at www.plantijnmaps.com.

May's top 10 sales on AbeBooks featured multiple collections of etchings, along with works on architecture, chemistry, law, and the Malay Archipelago. Add fairy tales, poetry and more, and here we go.

10. The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, a presentation copy of the 1869 first edition in which the noted naturalist chronicles the exploration of the area. $4,869.

9. The Collected Poems by D.H. Lawrence, one of 100 copies of a signed, limited edition published in 1928. $4,893.

8. A Room of One's Own, a 1929 signed, limited first edition of Virginia Woolf's essay on feminism. $4,950.

7. The Four Books of Architecture by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. This is a first French edition from 1640, which includes the woodcuts from the original Italian edition of 1570. Palladio was enormously influential in the field of Western architecture. $5,844.

6. English Etchings, an 8-volume collection of etched works by English artists including William Strang, James McNeill Whistler, Frank Short, Percy Thomas, Herbert Marshall, Robert Currie, Buxton Knight and Oliver Baker. $5,867.

5. The Library or Treasury of French Law, a 1615 compilation of French laws by lawyer Laurent Bouchel. $6,356.

4. Traité élémentaire de Chimie, a second printing of the treatise on elementary chemistry originally printed in 1789 by the "father of modern chemistry," Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier. $7,709.

In The News: The First Telephone Book, Christie's Scientific Auction, AbeBooks Top 10

- By Michael Stillman

Combination potato chip canister/burial urn.

3. Atlas der Krystallformen by Victor Goldschmidt, an 18-volume set by the man considered to be the father of modern geochemistry. $8,500.

2. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, a first edition, first issue with 22 etched plates by George Cruikshank. $11,388.

1. Etudes à l'Eau-Forte, a collection of 25 etchings by Francis Seymour Hayden. $17,216.

Finally, we have a story that does not relate to books, but is close enough for mention here as it does relate to printed ephemera. Specifically, we are talking about the Pringles can, home to those neatly stackable reconstituted potato chips. Pringles did for potato chips what McDonalds did for hamburgers. The designer of this ingenious packaging system, Frederic Baur, recently died at the age of 89, and in keeping with his wishes, part of his cremated remains were buried in a Pringles can. We are aware of no other coffins or burial urns which feature a printed label. So now Baur's neatly stacked, reconstituted remains can be found in one of his landmark cylinders, and all of us, worried about the high cost of burial, have a new, inexpensive option to consider.