Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2011 Issue

Books Printed Before 1700 from Helen R. Kahn

Books before 1700.

Helen R. Kahn and Associates recently released their latest catalogue, their 82nd: Books Printed Before 1700. Though the bookseller is located in Montreal, Canada, New World, these books were published in the old one. Printing was limited in North America before 1700. However, many of the items have a connection to North America, including many early explorations. As befitting a Montreal bookseller, the concentration is more on explorations beginning in Canada, and by visits of the French, rather than the English or Spanish. Names like La Salle, and the early Jesuit and Recollet missionaries appear. Additionally, much of a European focus will be found, involving political, religious, and scientific issues of the day. Here are a few examples.

Item 47 is a Description de la Louisiane... a description of the territory of Louisiana in what was then the southwest of New France. The year of this edition of a book first published in 1683 was 1688. The author was Louis Hennepin, a missionary who traveled for a while with La Salle. He later would break out on his own, exploring the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes regions. He was the first European to explore some of this territory, and he provides much of the first information about this region available. In some cases, Hennepin may have cheated a bit, claimed to have visited places perhaps he got his information about from others, but all in all, this is about as good an account of the earliest visits to this territory as you will find. Priced at $6,750.

Hennepin may have penetrated some of the deepest forests of North America before anyone else, but he was hardly the first to visit New France. Even by the mid-16th century, several navigators had visited Canada, though they had not yet traveled to the back country. Item 86 is Historia dell'India America detta altramente Francia Antarctica... This is the 1561 first Italian edition of a book first published in 1557. The author was Andre Thevet, a Franciscan friar who liked to travel. He spent several years in the Middle East before embarking on a journey to visit French settlements in Brazil. He writes about them in this book. However, he then goes on to write extensively about Canada, which he claimed to have visited. It seems that the consensus today is that he never did any such thing. Like Hennepin and many others in earlier times, he seems to have placed himself in the middle of stories he heard from others. Some of Thevet's material was evidently lifted from others, but he also provides the first reports of activities in Canada, particularly of native behavior, later confirmed by different explorers. He must have been gathering information from others who explored Maritime Canada but who did not write down their experiences. He is known to have met with Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who claimed Canada for France, probably interviewed Canadian Indians Cartier brought to France, and may have met others who visited Canada at the time. The result is that his work, though at times inaccurate, is a major source on Canada in its earliest recorded history. Item 86. $8,000.

Item 63 is Astronomia Magna, by Philip Aureol Theophrast Bombast von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, which is how we will refer to him. Paracelsus, born in 1493, was both brilliant inquisitive scholar and a believer in astrology (he can be forgiven this unscientific attribute as most were in his era). He practiced medicine and, most unusual for his time, relied primarily on scientific observation for his remedies, though he did incorporate astrology. He was an irascible personality, one who made enemies much easier than friends. He could perceive evil in the practices of others and come down hard on it, not the type of behavior designed to make one popular. It somewhat doomed him to wondering around, having a hard time holding down a position for long despite his scholarly attributes. History has never known quite what to do with the man. Offered is a 1571 first edition of this work. $4,500.

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    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
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    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
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    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.

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