Shop our assortment of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=First%2520Edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first editions</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Fine%2520bindings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fine bindings</a>, limited editions and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Special%20Feature=Signed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a>&nbsp;books. Explore&nbsp;Harry Potter,&nbsp;The Great Gatsby,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Special%20Feature=Signed&amp;query=A%20Christmas%20Carol&amp;tab=objects" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A Christmas Carol</a>,&nbsp;Lord of the Rings&nbsp;and more. Browse&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Mark%2520Twain" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mark Twain</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=J.R.R.%2520Tolkien" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">J.R.R. Tolkien</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=J.K.%2520Rowling" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">J.K. Rowling</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Ernest%2520Hemingway" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ernest Hemingway</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=F.%2520Scott%2520Fitzgerald" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">F. Scott Fitzgerald</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Robert%2520Frost" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Robert Frost</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Charles%2520Dickens" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Charles Dickens</a>.

First Editions

Literature & Children's Books

History, Travel and Exploration

Americana

Art & Design Books

Books by Top Authors

Books

A mid-19th century town plan of New York City by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=John%20M.%20Atwood&amp;tab=objects" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">John M. Atwood</a>.<ul><li>John M. Atwood (American).</li><li>Map of the City of New York with the Adjacent Cities of Brooklyn &amp; Jersey City, &amp; The Village of Williamsburg.</li><li>New York: Ensign &amp; Thayer, 1849. </li><li>Original color.</li><li>Folded into cloth gilt covers, with booklet, with titlepage.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul> A folding plan of New York City with insets of Jersey City and Upper Manhattan. Of interest is the list of 'strokes of bell', for fire alarms of each district. The text is an extensive gazetteer.

Map Of New York City

A complete set of UK hardcover editions of Harry Potter.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 7 volumes.</li><li>J.K. Rowling (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Bloomsbury,&nbsp;1997-2007.</li><li>All but Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are first printings.</li><li>Bound in the original publisher's color pictorial boards, with all in publisher's original unclipped color pictorial jackets.</li></ul>

Complete Harry Potter Series

Inscribed later printing of the modern children's classic, an exploration of innocence and change, death and courage.<ul><li>E.B. White (American).</li><li>Illustrated by Garth Williams (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Harper &amp; Row&nbsp;(1952).</li><li>[8], 184 pages.</li><li>Inscribed by White on half title: "Salutations! E.B. White And thanks for your gift to the Center," dated March 1983.</li><li>Bound in original full tan cloth, front board and spine stamped in blue with illustrated title, and with original pictorial dust jacket, blue web-patterned endpapers.</li></ul> One spider's efforts to save a pig from slaughter charmed audiences immediately upon publication, showing that "human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders." The book was published by Harper under the editorship of Ursula Nordstrom, who was the primary force in fashioning modern children's literature away from morality and education towards imagination and affection. While the inscription is in a later reprint likely dating from the time it was signed (1983), White was not known for signing many books, making this is a special copy. Newbery Honor Award.

Charlotte's Web

Starmus 50 Years Of Man In Space, bearing the thumbprint of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Stephen%20Hawking&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stephen Hawking</a>.<ul><li>Edited by Garik Israelian (Armenian-Spanish) and Brian May (English).</li><li>Forward by Stephen Hawking (English).</li><li>United Kingdom: Canopus Publishing Ltd., (Starmus), 2014.</li><li>Signed with the thumbprint of Stephen Hawking.</li><li>Hardbound.</li><li>Photographic illustrations.</li><li>With authentication inscription to front endpaper "This is the right thumb print of Professor Stephen Hawking witness by George Zhao", together with a letter of authenticity signed by Stephen Grocutt, and 5 other photographic ephemera relating to Hawking, together all items preserved in smart wooden box.</li></ul> Stephen Hawking led the Starmus festival in 2014. A unique science outreach event dedicated to the latest thinking of some of the world's greatest minds on the nature of the Universe, Hawking was keynote speaker, delivering two lectures on the origin of the universe and the origin of black holes. Stephen Grocutt was a member of Stephen Hawking's private healthcare team from 2015-2017, traveling with him around the world. Also included alongside the letter of authenticity signed by Stephen Grocutt is a photograph of Mr Grocutt together with Professor Hawking in London on the evening of his BBC Radio 4 Reith Lecture on blackholes. Qihui Zhao who signs as George Zhao worked as Professor Hawking's medical assistant for many years.

Starmus 50 Years Of Man In Space

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First edition</a>, first printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Virginia%20Woolf&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Virginia Woolf</a>’s To The Lighthouse.<ul><li>Virginia Woolf (English).</li><li>London: The Hogarth Press, 1927.</li><li>Bound in blue cloth, with dust jacket.</li></ul> There is a review slip loosely slipped inside, on footed ‘The Hogarth Press’ paper, outlining the date of publication (May 7th) and the price (7/6) in what may be Leonard Woolf’s own hand, though this is not certain – the slip is now encased in a protective plastic covering to preserve. Upon completing the draft of this, her most autobiographical novel, Woolf described it as ‘easily the best of my books’ and her husband Leonard thought it a “‘masterpiece’… entirely new ‘a psychological poem'”. They published it together at their Hogarth Press in London in 1927. The first impression comprised 3000 copies. The book outsold all Woolf’s previous novels, and the proceeds enabled the Woolfs to buy a car.

To The Lighthouse (First edition, First Printing)

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First London edition</a>, first printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed&amp;query=stephen%20hawking&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hawking</a>'s memoir, My Brief History, bearing Hawking's thumb print in black ink.<ul><li>Stephen Hawking (English).</li><li>London: Bantam Press, 2013.</li><li>illustrated.</li><li>Hardbound.</li><li>Hawking’s thumb print appears to a clear area at the base of the title-page with a black ink annotation "12th September 2013 / Stephen Hawking / DAMTP (Department of Applied Mathematics &amp; Theoretical Physics), University of Cambridge, U.K.", with the witness stamp of Judith Croasdell. </li><li>Housed in a black leather open ended slipcase. </li><li>Included with this item are two original unpublished photographs of Hawking: one with his eldest son Robert and one with his second wife Elaine.</li></ul> Judith Croasdell worked with Stephen as his personal assistant from 2004 to 2014 and was Starmus III Consultant to Stephen from 2015-2016.

My Brief History. A Memoir

Deluxe edition, and first or second printing of The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse.<ul><li>Beatrix Potter (English).</li><li>London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1910.</li><li>Sextodecimo.</li><li>Color frontispiece, plain title vignette and 26 color plates, contemporary ink gift inscription dated Christmas 1910 to half-title.</li><li>Bound in publisher’s blue moiré cloth with fielded illustrative paste-down of Mrs. Tittlemouse, all edges gilt.</li><li>Custom-made solander box.</li></ul>

The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/sothebys-&amp;-abbeville-press-capsule-libraries" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sotheby's &amp; Abbeville Capsule Libraries</a>&nbsp;present a curated selection of Abbeville Press books from the personal archive of publisher Bob Abrams, in conjunction with&nbsp;Art without Boundaries: The Abrams Family Collection. The&nbsp;Photographic Eye Collection&nbsp;is a set of 4 books on photography including the below titles: <ul><li>A History of Women Photographers.</li><li>Naomi Rosenblum (American).</li><li>New York: Abbeville Press, 2010.</li><li>Third edition, revised and expanded, out of print.</li><li>432 pages.</li></ul> <ul><li>New Color/New Work: Eighteen Photographic Essays.</li><li>Sally Eauclaire (American).</li><li>New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.</li><li>First edition, out of print.</li><li>276 pages.</li></ul> <ul><li>L'Amour Fou: Photography And Surrealism.</li><li>Rosalind E. Krauss, Jane Livingston, and Dawn Ades.</li><li>New York: Abbeville Press, 1985.</li><li>First edition, out of print.</li><li>243 pages.</li></ul> <ul><li>A World History of Photography.</li><li>Naomi Rosenblum (American).</li><li>New York: Abbeville Press, 2019.</li><li>Fifth edition, revised and expanded, In print.</li><li>748 pages.</li></ul> ﻿At Abbeville Press, Bob Abrams published not only many distinguished books&nbsp;of&nbsp;photography, but also several important books&nbsp;about&nbsp;photography—volumes that served to sharpen the reader’s “photographic eye.” This capsule library includes two seminal works by Naomi Rosenblum:&nbsp;A World History of Photography, the most ambitious treatment of photography as a branch of art history ever written, and her equally monumental&nbsp;History of Women Photographers.&nbsp;New Color/New Work: Eighteen Photographic Essays&nbsp;surveyed the emerging field of fine art color photography and included portfolios by William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz, and other now-legendary names. Finally,&nbsp;L'Amour Fou: Photography and Surrealism,&nbsp;originally published as the catalogue of an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery, became a touchstone for a generation of artists and art historians who were ready to embrace the “optical unconscious.”

Photographic Eye Collection

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Special%20Feature=First%2520Edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First edition</a>, first state of this iconic <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Childrens" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">children's</a> book by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Theodor%2520Seuss%2520Geisel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dr. Seuss</a>. <ul><li>Dr. Seuss&nbsp;[Theodor Seuss Geisel](American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Random House,&nbsp;(1957).</li><li>61, [1] pages.</li><li>Bound with original flat paper over boards (not glazed paper) and in original unclipped (200/200) dust jacket.</li></ul> "[First graders] still want to laugh at something that's ridiculous." – Dr. Seuss.This subversive update to Dick and Jane was based upon the idea that kids would get more excited about reading if they enjoyed the material. Challenged to create a reader for young children using only 220 different words, Seuss tricked kids into enjoying learning with his destructive and charismatic house guest. Inspired in part by Krazy Kat and Felix the Cat, but with a wily mind all his own, the Cat in the Hat's humor and naughtiness are engaged in the noble cause of literacy. "Parents," notes biographer Brian Jay Jones, "were more than happy to join Dr. Seuss as fellow revolutionaries. Even if parents didn't necessarily understand the pedagogy, it was easy to see the difference between the staid Dick and Jane and the rambunctious The Cat in the Hat: kids&nbsp;wanted&nbsp;to read about the antics of the cat, just as Geisel had hoped." The first book featuring the US literary icon, this copy comes directly from the stock of Aleph-Bet Books, the firm of Seuss bibliographers Helen Younger and Marc Younger. Younger, Younger, &amp; Hirsch, First Editions of Dr. Seuss Books: A Guide to Identification; Jones, Becoming Dr. Seuss.

The Cat in the Hat (First Edition, First State)

A first edition copy of A Second Voyage Round The World.<ul><li>James Cook (English).</li><li>A Second Voyage round the world, in the Years MDCCLXXII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXV.&nbsp;By James Cook, Esq. Commander of His Majesty’s Bark, the Resolution.&nbsp;Undertaken by Order of the King, and encouraged by a Parliamentary Grant of Four Thousand Pounds.&nbsp;Drawn up from Authentic Papers.&nbsp;</li><li>London:&nbsp;Printed for the Editor: Sold by J. Almon, opposite Burlington-House, Picadilly; And Fletcher &amp; Hodson, Cambridge,&nbsp;1776.&nbsp;</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>102 pages.</li><li>Pages uncut in original boards, neatly rebacked to style.</li><li>Presented in a modern blue cloth box, red morocco label.&nbsp;</li></ul> The rarest of all the surreptitious accounts of Cook’s voyages, issued with a title phrased to mislead the public into believing it to be Cook’s own account, it was initially accepted as an authentic account but the book was quickly exposed and denounced. Following the return of the Third Voyage with news of Cook’s death in 1780 and the subsequent heightened public interest in Cook, the original title-leaf was cancelled and replaced by a rephrased title-page with a new date, now attributing authorship to ‘An Officer on Board’. This ploy seems also to have been unsuccessful – the public was interested in the Third Voyage – and, consequently, that second issue is as rare as the first. Beaglehole remarks that ’it recounts a few incidents, not otherwise known, which do not seem out of key with the voyage as a whole’, but goes on to say that ‘the rest is so palpably fake, and in the most sensational terms, that it must be regarded as original invention – on the basis, perhaps, of a reading of Marra or conversation with a stray sailor...’. Georg Forster declared that it was the work of a Cambridge undergraduate and subsequent opinion has tended to echo contemporary sentiment. Nevertheless, Renard ventures that the account derives ‘from the journal of one of the officers on board’, while it has even been suggested that the journal of Lieutenant Pickersgill may have been the source.&nbsp;

A Second Voyage Round The World

A wall map of Europe according to the Congress of Vienna.<ul><li>Maximilian De Traux (Austrian).</li><li>Carte Générale et Itinéraire de L'Europe Divisée en Tous les États d'après le Congrèss sw Vienne &amp; autres traités postérieurs.</li><li>Vienna: Artaria &amp; Comp., 1818.</li><li>Original color.</li><li>Dissected and laid on linen in nine sections as issued.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul> A large and detailed wall map, depicting the boundaries of Europe as settled by the Congress of Vienna (1814-5), settling the changes caused by the Napoleonic War. Besides these borders this map is interesting for its depiction of the coach roads and use of hachuring to display relief. Maximilian de Traux (c.1765-c1830) was a colonel of the Austrian military engineers. From 1803 he was active in Dalmatia, improving the defenses of Zadar, but also surveying Dalmatia (with a map published 1810) and its cities.

Austrian Map Of Europe

A first British edition, first printing copy of H.G. Wells' Time Machine.<ul><li>H.G. Wells (English, 1866-1946).</li><li>London: William Heinemann, 1895.</li><li>Small octavo.</li><li>152 pages.</li><li>Binding F, bound in gray cloth and stamped in brown, with no publisher's catalog in rear.</li></ul>

Time Machine

An important 16th century plan of Moscow.<ul><li>Frans Hogenberg (Belgian).</li><li>Georg Braun (German).</li><li>Moscauw.</li><li>Cologne: circa 1575.</li><li>Latin text edition. </li><li>Colored.</li><li>This map is presented unframed.</li></ul> A fine example of this 'map-view' of Moscow, published in the second volume of the 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum', the first systematic atlas of town plans. The major buildings are shown in profile, with no consideration for perspective. On the frozen river Mosca are skaters and horse-drawn sledges and in the foreground are soldiers on horseback.&nbsp; This is the first of the two plans of Moscow issued by Braun and Hogenberg. A second appeared in the last volume, published in 1618, necessitated by Ladislas of Poland, who rampaged through the city in 1611.

German Map Of Moscow

Signed first edition presentation copy of Connolly's Ideas and Places.<ul><li>Cyril Connolly (English).</li><li>London: Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson, 1953.</li><li>Inscribed on the front blank endleaf "To Reni Elvin from Cyril Connolly May 13 . 1954".</li><li>Bound in orange cloth with original dust jacket.</li></ul>

Ideas and Places

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Shakespeare&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shakespeare</a>'s The Tempest with lithographs by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Chagall&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chagall</a>, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> by the artist.<ul><li>William Shakespeare (English).</li><li>Illustrated by Marc Chagall (French-Russian).</li><li>Monte Carlo: André Sauret, 1975.</li><li>Folio.</li><li>Includes 50 lithographs after Chagall, of which 31 are hors-texte, printed by Mourlot.</li><li>Limited edition, one of 250 copies from a total edition of 270, this number 223.</li><li>Signed by the artist on the justification page, on Arches.</li><li>Loose as issued in the original printed wrappers, housed in the original cream vellum portfolio box with title in gilt to cover and spine.</li></ul> At the age of 88, Chagall produced this evocative interpretation of The Tempest. The illustrations add a new dimension to a much-loved text and combine Shakespeare's themes of magic and illusion with his own otherworldly images. Just as The Tempest was one of Shakespeare's final plays, this wonderful series of lithographs marks a 'farewell' to Chagall's frenetic creative output for such large-scale projects.

The Tempest (Signed with Lithographs by Chagall)

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of The House At Pooh Corner by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=A.A.%20Milne&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A.A. Milne</a>.<ul><li>A. A.&nbsp;Milne (English).</li><li>Illustrated by E. H. Shephard.</li><li>London: Methuen &amp; Co. Ltd., 1928.</li><li>Bound in the publisher's original gilt stamped pink cloth, top edge gilt, pictorial pastedowns and endpapers.</li></ul>

The House At Pooh Corner

An album of watercolors of flowers, fruit and silkworms.&nbsp;<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>China: Circa 1800.</li><li>Folio.</li><li>244 mounted watercolors of flowers, fruit, birds and silkworms on Chinese paper.</li><li>Nineteenth-century russia gilt, gilt armorial of George Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford (later 5th Duke of Marlborough).</li></ul> A sumptuous collection of mounted watercolors depicting Chinese silkworm cultivation, birds (including parrots), Asian fruits and multiple species of flowers; the work of exceptionally fine draftsmanship from a Chinese school. Stylistic variety suggests a number of hands. The Chinese characters on the painting of silkworms read Quan Yuan Hao Jian Bo, meaning a shop (the first three characters) that sells silk foil (the last two characters). The spines of two volumes are labeled ‘Flowers’, and the third is labelled ‘Silk Worms, Fruits &amp;c’. From the library of George Spencer-Churchill, fifth Duke of Marlborough (1766-1840). The armorial design on the covers exhibit the coronet of a marquess indicating that the albums were bound whilst the Duke was Marquess of Blanford. He had a famed library at Whiteknights Park, near Reading, which was sold in 1819 due to financial difficulties exacerbated by his extravagant lifestyle. At Whiteknights the Duke had established the gardens as some of the most renowned in England at the time, richly described by Barbara Hofland in A Descriptive Account of the Mansion and Gardens of White-Knights, 1819. They featured a folly of a ruined Gothic chapel, exotic botanicals imported from China and India and a Chinese temple. He was a passionate botanist, and much of his library reflected this love for natural history, this rare collection of watercolors being no exception. Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China in 1793, saw the opening up of the Imperial lands to the West, so it is likely that these drawings were produced in the last decade of the eighteenth or the first decade of the nineteenth century.

Album Of Watercolors Of Flowers, Fruit And Silkworms

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, limited issue <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">inscribed</a> copy of Matisse Picasso And Gertrude Stein.<ul><li>Gertrude Stein (American).</li><li>Paris: Maurice Darantiere for the Plain Edition, 1933.</li><li>Part of an edition of 500 copies.</li><li>Inscribed by Stein on the front blank endleaf and dated Oct 20, 1933.</li><li>Bound in the original brown printed wrappers, with the original card slipcase.</li></ul> Inscribed shortly before she returned to America after a thirty-year absence.

Matisse Picasso And Gertrude Stein With Two Shorter Stories

A First Ogilby edition of The Holy Bible.<ul><li>Edited by John Ogilby (Scottish).</li><li>The Holy Bible. Containing the Bookes of the Old &amp; New Testament... illustrated w[ith] Chorographical Sculps. by J[ohn] Ogilby [bound with] The Book of Common Prayer.</li><li>Cambridge: Printed by John Field, Printer to the Universitie, 1660.</li><li>Illustrated with 110 double-page engraved plates of biblical scenes after paintings by Rubens, Tintoretto, de Vos, de Bruyn and other old masters, including Wenceslaus Hollar’s impressive double-folding-page view of Jerusalem, his Chorographica Terra Sanctae of the Holy Lands, and the engraved general title by Lombart after Diepenbeeck depicting Solomon enthroned.</li><li>Large folios.</li><li>Captions in Latin (some masked at time of printing).</li><li>Engraved general title, New Testament title dated 1659.</li><li>Ruled in red throughout, wide margined on thick paper, armorial bookplate to front pastedown of each volume, bound in near-contemporary straight-grained red morocco, armorial device supralibros to upper boards obscured by later blue morocco panel set within gilt meander border, gilt spine in 8 compartments, alternating lettering and cross-hatch design, all edges gilt over earlier fore-edge painting of meandering vines,</li></ul>&nbsp;An exceptional, well-margined copy of John Ogilby’s imaginative reissue of the Field large folio bible, published for the Restoration of King Charles II on 29th May 1660. The work was originally illustrated with just 8 plates by Lombart and Hollar, which had been intended for the London Polyglot bible published in 1657, but Ogilby soon offered the option of embellishing the work with a choice of engravings from the Amsterdam publisher Nicolaes Visscher. The number of plates is known to vary, but ESTC calls for a total of 102 only. The text was first published the previous year by John Field, printer to the University of Cambridge, who had been commissioned to supply a lectern bible for use in churches and libraries. The work was well-received, with the former university Vice-Chancellor John Worthington noting that ‘For a fair large letter, large paper, with fair margin, &amp;c., there was never such a Bible in being’. In the event, however, most of the edition was bought-up by Ogilby for his own project. Variously called ‘Ogilby’s Bible’ or ‘The Restoration Bible’, the result was a truly luxurious production, with well-margined copies such as this costing upwards of £25 in sheets alone. The finished work was presented to Charles II, to whom the work is dedicated, when the restored monarch first visited the Royal Chapel in Whitehall. An ‘unrivalled specimen of the press of the time’, the finest edition of the Holy Bible then extant (Lowndes).

The Holy Bible

First American edition, first printing of Kafka's The Trial.<ul><li>Franz Kafka (Czech).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Alfred A. Knopf,&nbsp;1937.&nbsp;</li><li>297 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in orange cloth on flexible boards with black lettering and decoration.</li></ul>

The Trial

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Ortelius&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ortelius</a>' <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/maps-&amp;-botanicals" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">map</a> of China, taken from the fifth, final, and most complete French edition of Theatre de l'Univers.<ul><li>Abraham Ortelius (Belgian).</li><li>Theatre de l'Univers - China.</li><li>Antwerp: Christopher Plantin for the author, 1598.</li><li>Double-page copper engraved map, with later hand-coloring.</li><li>Enriched with decorative cartouches, birds, animals, and ships.</li><li>French text on verso.</li><li>This work is presented matted and unframed.</li></ul>

Belgian Map Of China

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First edition</a>, first printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?creators=Virginia%2520Woolf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Virginia Woolf's</a>&nbsp;The Voyage Out.<ul><li>Virginia Woolf (English).</li><li>London: Duckworth &amp; Co., 1915.</li><li>318 pages.</li><li>16 pages of publisher’s advertisements.</li><li>Bound by The Chelsea Bindery in full morocco with gilt title, marbled endpapers, handsewn headbands and all edges gilt.</li></ul>

The Voyage Out (First Edition, First Printing)

First edition, first impression of the James Bond novel Moonraker.<ul><li>Ian Fleming (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Jonathan Cape,&nbsp;1955.</li><li>256 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Black cloth boards with silver lettering in first issue dust jacket.</li><li>Housed in half morocco clamshell box.</li></ul>

Moonraker (First Edition, First Impression)

Signed first-edition presentation copy of The Green Man of Kilsona.<ul><li>Festus Pragnell [Frank William Pragnell] (English).</li><li>The Green Man of Kilsona. The Ape-man of the Electron World.</li><li>London: Philip Allan, [1936].</li><li>Inscribed to Pragnell's American literary agent, Forrest Ackerman.</li><li>Hardbound with the original pictorial dust jacket.</li></ul> Festus Pragnell (1905–1977) was a British policeman and author of pulp fiction, active mostly in the 1930s and 1940s. This work is a fantasy set on Kilsona, an inhabited planet of the microcosm. Pragnell's summary of the planet's history is largely based on the writings of H. Geewells, especially his book War from the Clouds.

The Green Man of Kilsona

First American edition of the fourth book of the Barbar series.<ul><li>Jean de Brunhoff (French).</li><li>Introduction by A.A. Milne (English).</li><li>Translated by Merle Haas (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Random House,&nbsp;(1937).</li><li>Large quarto.</li><li>Bound with printed boards and cloth spine.</li></ul>

Zephir's Holidays

Uncorrected proof of the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first US edition</a> of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;query=Tolkien&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tolkien</a>'s long essay on fairy tales, accompanied by an exemplary story — W.H. Auden's copy.<ul><li>J.R.R. Tolkien (English).</li><li>Tree and Leaf, Includes Mythopoeia and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;Houghton Mifflin Company,&nbsp;1965.</li><li>82 pages.</li><li>With Auden's marginal marks throughout and his notes on the final leaf.&nbsp;</li><li>Original plastic-comb-bound printed pale blue wrappers.</li></ul> "In describing a fairy story which they think adults might possibly read for their own entertainment, reviewers frequently indulge in such waggeries as: 'this book is for children from the ages of six to sixty'. But I have never yet seen the puff of a new motor-model that begun thus: 'this toy will amuse infants from seventeen to seventy'; though that to my mind would be much more appropriate." Though unsigned, this copy is W.H. Auden's, with his markings in the text and notes (including a list of the seven deadly sins) on the blank verso of the last leaf. Auden famously wrote a 1954 New York Times review raving about The Fellowship of The Rings, which in no small part helped legitimize Tolkien in literary circles: "No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy." He also shared a friendly correspondence with Tolkien, exchanging letters frequently over the years and receiving advance copies of the next two installments of the series. He also, the year after Tree And Leaf appeared, spoke at a New York gathering of the Tolkien Society. Tolkien himself later contributed a lovely poem in Anglo-Saxon and English titled "For W.H.A." as part of a festschrift for Auden's sixtieth birthday in Shenandoah. This book, in many ways a critical defense of the kind of stories Auden had previously so lavishly praised, would have undoubtedly been of particular interest. An excellent association and rare in this format.

Tree And Leaf

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> painted portrait of an unidentified young woman by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=sylvia%20plath&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath</a>.<ul><li>Sylvia Plath (American, 1932-1963).</li><li>(Wellesley, Mass):&nbsp;n.p,&nbsp;[1948 or 1949].</li><li>Gouache painting on thick paper.</li><li>Signed by Plath on verso: "Sylvia Plath / (Age 16) / 26 Elmwood Rd / Wellesley, Mass."&nbsp;</li><li>With Plath estate seal on both front (lower left corner) and back.&nbsp;</li><li>Housed in a metal frame.</li></ul> An original, bold portrait painted by a 16-year-old Sylvia Plath. Plath made visual art throughout her life in a wide variety of mediums: from collage and oils to watercolor and pastels. Before she settled firmly on poetry in college, she seriously considered majoring in art. This early piece, painted while she was in high school (and, given the inscription on the verso, likely submitted to an art contest or competition), is executed in colorful gouache in a decidedly modern, almost Fauvist style, and features an unnamed young woman resting her chin in her hand. The approach to this piece speaks to her early experimentation with the kind of art that would inspire her writing as an adult. Plath would later write to her mother, "I feel I'm developing a kind of primitive style of my own which I am very fond of" (August 28th, 1956). In 1958, she wrote that her "deepest source of inspiration" was "the art of primitives like Henri Rousseau, Gauguin and Paul Klee and De Chirico [...] Once I start writing, it comes and comes" (quoted in Clark, 518). As this letter suggests, Plath did not merely dabble in art: it was in many ways central to her creative practice. According to Dorothy Moss, curator of the 2017 Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Plath's art, ONE LIFE: SYLVIA PLATH, "I think that once you know that she drew and painted and sketched constantly as a child, and realize that she went to college to major in art, you'll start seeing how vivid her descriptions are, and how beautifully she put visual images into words." That exhibition prominently featured Plath's painting "Triple-Face Portrait" (1950), which shares a decidedly similar sensibility with this piece. A moving and vibrant original work from one of the defining authors of the 20th century, capturing the youthful exuberance she would transform from visual media into the written word

Untitled Portrait Of A Woman

An illuminated Qur'an juz', copied by Muhammad Ja'far al-Husayni, India, Mughal, dated 1141 AH/1728-29 AD

First complete English translation of the classic swashbuckling adventure, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=The%20Three%20Musketeers&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Three Musketeers</a> — the most acclaimed and influential of the early translations.<ul><li>Alexandre Dumas (French).</li><li>Translated by William Barrow.</li><li>The Three Musketeers; or, the feats and fortunes of a Gascon adventurer. </li><li>London: Bruce and Wyld, 1846.&nbsp;</li><li>687 pages.</li><li>Translator's preface bound before Preface to The Library of Foreign Romance.&nbsp;</li><li>Without the additional Library of Foreign Romance series title page, matching Munro 80.&nbsp;</li><li>Contemporary half brown calf with marbled boards, rebacked with original spine laid down, gilt-lettered burgundy morocco spine label.</li><li>Housed in elaborate custom inlaid morocco clamshell case, lined in scarlet wool.</li></ul> First published in Paris in 1844, The Three Musketeers appeared in England and America soon thereafter in a variety of shortened and serialized adaptations: first in two US translations, then serialized and abridged in the UK by Vickers. Barrow's version here, published as part of the Library of Foreign Romance series, is traditionally labeled the earliest complete English translation because Vickers omits "the account of the dinner at Maitre Coquenard's" plus "much of the original French version is compressed"; further, "an entirely new chapter which Dumas had not written is gratuitously interpolated before the final one" (Munro, 80-1). But most importantly, Barrow's translation was the most widely read, among the best for more than a century, and handled with verve and a charming touch of literalism. Yet it must be admitted that neither the literalism nor the completeness is altogether absolute: as the Translator's Preface takes care to reassure its readers, a translation from the French that left nothing at all to the imagination would "pander to profligacy," sullied by those traces of objectionable matter so enticing to Continental sensibilities and so morally objectionable to "those of our fair countrywomen who have not lost the delicacy which is the most endearing of their national charms"; those traces have therefore been safely omitted. What remains does very well. The novel has been the subject of three centuries' worth of dramatic adaptations: from the opera produced in Dumas's lifetime, to a Wodehouse-authored Broadway musical, to the 1973 Oliver Reed/Michael York costume extravaganza beloved of middle-school substitute French teachers, to 2009's Barbie and the Three Musketeers. None of these tributes have ever eclipsed the original, which lives and flourishes not by its historical intrigues or even its immortal characters, but by its high spirits, joie de vivre, and dashing style.

The Three Musketeers

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Fine%2520Bindings%2520and%2520Sets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">finely bound</a> second edition of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Jane%20Austen&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jane Austen</a>'s debut novel, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Sense%20And%20Sensibility&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sense And Sensibility</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>Jane Austen (English).</li><li>London: Printed for the author by T. Egerton, 1813.&nbsp;</li><li>12mo.</li><li>Complete with all the half-titles, bound without final blanks (as often).</li><li>Contemporary sprinkled half-calf with marbled paper sides, spine ruled in compartments gilt, twin red morocco title labels, housed in a leather-entry slipcase.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul> Austen’s debut novel and one of her several masterpieces, was originally issued in this three-volume format with a print run thought to be in the hundreds. It was so well received that Austen paid for this second edition to be printed. It has remained in print ever since.

Sense And Sensibility

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First American Edition</a>, First Printing of the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=James%20Bond&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">James Bond</a> novel Casino Royale by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Ian%20Fleming&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ian Fleming</a>.<ul><li>Ian Fleming (English).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;The Macmillan Company,&nbsp;1954.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>176 pages.</li><li>In pictorial dust jacket.</li></ul>

Casino Royale

A collection of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first printings of the Jack Reacher Mysterious Bookshop Collection.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 15 volumes.</li><li>Lee Child [James Dover Grant] (English).</li><li>Jack Reacher Mysterious Bookshop Collection: Killing Floor, Die Trying, Tripwire, Running Blind, Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, Bad Luck And Trouble, Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours, The Affair, Worth Dying For, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, No Middle Name.</li><li>New York, NY:&nbsp;The Mysterious Bookshop,&nbsp;1997-2017.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavos.</li><li>All Volumes are signed flat by Lee Childs on tipped in publisher's limitation page. </li><li>Volumes 1-10 and 12 and 13 are limited editions #10/100.</li><li>Volume 11 is a limited edition #10/60.</li><li>Volumes 14 and 15 are limited editions #10/75.</li><li>Volumes 1-13 have paper spines and Volumes 14 and 15 have dark green leather spines with gilted lettering and designs.</li></ul>

Jack Reacher: Mysterious Bookshop Collection

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/the-workman-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Workman Collection</a> First issue, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> book printing of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;creators=Charles%2520Dickens" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Charles Dickens'</a> The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.<ul><li>Charles Dickens (English).</li><li>Illustrations by Phiz [Hablot K. Browne] (English).</li><li>Frontispiece portrait by Daniel Maclise (Irish).</li><li>London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>39 illustrated plates of earlier issue and Chapman and Hall imprint present for first four illustrations.</li><li>Bound in original dark olive green fine-diaper cloth with blind-stamped border to covers, spine with gilt letters and yellow endpapers.</li><li>Housed in a custom clamshell case.</li></ul>

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

A first edition, large paper copy of Walt Whitman's November Boughs.<ul><li>Walt Whitman (American).</li><li>Philadelphia:&nbsp;David McKay,&nbsp;1888.</li><li>140 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Includes a portrait of Elias Hicks in text.</li><li>Part of an edition of 400 of the "Third Printing," produced by Whitman for the sole purpose of distribution to his personal friends.&nbsp;</li><li>Inscribed by Whitman's literary executor, friend and biographer, Horace Traubel, to bibliographer Henry Buxton Forman, on front free endpaper, "To H. Buxton Forman with the love of Horace Traubel July 1896. / Special Edition."</li><li>Bound in publisher's dark green cloth-covered beveled boards, stamped in gilt, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed, bookplates of Estelle Doheny and Buxton-Forman to pastedown.</li></ul>

November Boughs

Set of first-edition volumes of Churchill's The Second World War.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 6.</li><li>Winston Churchill (British).</li><li>London: Cassell &amp; Co., 1948–54.</li><li>Bound in half green morocco over cloth boards, raised bands and gilt lettering and heraldic lion motif on spine.</li></ul>

The Second World War

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Sets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">set</a> of signed <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Sets&amp;query=kay%20thompson&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eloise</a> books.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4 volumes.</li><li>Kay Thompson (American).</li><li>Illustrated by Hilary Knight (American).&nbsp;</li><li>Eloise; Eloise in Paris; Eloise at Christmastime; Eloise in Moscow.</li><li>New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 1995-99-99-2000.</li><li>Original publisher's cloth with matching slipcases.</li></ul> <ul><li>Eloise:</li><li>Number 52 of 250.</li><li>Signed by Thompson and Knight.</li></ul> <ul><li>Eloise in Paris:</li><li>Number 248 of 250 copies.</li><li>Signed by Knight. </li></ul> <ul><li>Eloise at Christmastime:</li><li>Number 235 of 250 copies.</li><li>Signed by Knight. </li></ul> <ul><li>Eloise in Moscow:</li><li>Number 39 of 300 copies.</li><li>Signed by Knight.</li></ul> A scarce complete set of the limited signed issue of the classic Eloise stories. Thompson died in 1998, thus only the first volume is signed by the author, though all are signed by the illustrator Hilary Knight.

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John M. Atwood

J.K. Rowling

E.B. White

Stephen Hawking, Garik Israelian, Brian May

Virginia Woolf

Stephen Hawking

Beatrix Potter

Various Authors

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Attributed to Captain James Cook

Maximilian De Traux

H.G. Wells

Georg Braun, Frans Hogenberg

Cyril Connolly

Marc Chagall, William Shakespeare

A.A. Milne

Gertrude Stein

John Ogilby

Franz Kafka

Abraham Ortelius

Virginia Woolf

Ian Fleming

Festus Pragnell [Frank William Pragnell]

Jean de Brunhoff

J.R.R. Tolkien

Sylvia Plath

Alexandre Dumas

Jane Austen

Ian Fleming

Lee Child

Charles Dickens

Walt Whitman

Winston Churchill

Kay Thompson, Hilary Knight