Shelf Life: Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper from the Library of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone

Christoph Willibald Gluck Autograph manuscript of part of the celebrated air “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” from Orphée et Eurydice A WORKING DRAFT DIVERGING FROM THE FIRST EDITION, including changes to the music and text, beginning with the accompanied recitative for Eurydice and Orphée (“[Reçois] donc mes derniers adieux”), including Orphée’s fatal backward glance and Eurydice’s death, and concluding with the opening twenty-five bars of Orphée’s air (up to the Adagio “C’est ton amant”), in score, for voices and instruments, notated in dark brown ink on three five-stave systems per page, some annotations in pencil and red crayon, with deletions, smudging, and alterations, the manuscript extensively reworked by the composer, including a revision of the passage leading up to Eurydice’s death, notated on a single stave at the foot of the first page, with some earlier passages, diverging from the final published versions, still legible (including “objet de mes amours”) 4 pages, folio (c. 300 x 230 mm), 16-stave paper, [1774], a few minor tears, a little paper loss caused by oxidation of the ink, some spotting and staining, strengthened at spine THIS IS THE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS ARIAS IN ALL OPERA; IT IS WITHOUT DOUBT THE MOST IMPORTANT MANUSCRIPT BY GLUCK TO HAVE BEEN OFFERED AT AUCTION. This is a working manuscript, containing Gluck’s draft of the crucial scene preceding Orphée’s famous air, where, having been forbidden to look back at Eurydice as he leads her out of the underworld, the hero finds he is unable to resist her plaintive cries, glances at her, and causes her death. Gluck has deleted early versions of several passages in Orphée’s part and extensively remodelled them, the earlier drafts still visible under his heavy deletions; some of these reveal different words as well as different music from the final versions known today. The moment of Eurydice’s death is underscored by the momentary singing together of the two voices (not found in the Italian version), and this too is subject to deletions and revisions. Gluck deletes the first version of the words and writes the revision at the foot of the page (“Eu Orfée o Ciel je Meurs”). Even the words of Orphée’s “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” are different, the second line “…rien n’égale mon Malheur” here given as “j’ai perdu tout mon bonheur”; similarly the words “c’est ton Epoux” of the Adagio are given here as “c’est ton amant”. Gluck originally wrote Orfeo ed Euridice as an opera in Italian (Vienna, 1762), with the hero sung by a castrato. No autograph manuscript survives: the first edition is the primary source for the Vienna version. The composer greatly amplified the opera for Paris in 1774, rewriting the hero’s part for haut-contre (a high tenor). There is no complete autograph manuscript of the Paris version, though sections survive in Paris, Berlin and Stanford, amounting to roughly two-thirds of the score. In the present manuscript, Orphée’s part is notated in the alto clef, although the composer mistakenly began writing part of the opening of the air in the tenor clef. This air has been celebrated as a star vehicle for mezzo sopranos and contraltos from Pauline Viardot in the nineteenth century to the present. It was especially beloved in this country as “What is life to me without thee?”, as sung by the great contralto Kathleen Ferrier. PROVENANCE: Sale in these rooms, 3 December 2008, lot 35

View 1 of Lot 61: Christoph Willibald Gluck | Autograph manuscript of part of the celebrated air 'J’ai perdu mon Eurydice' from "Orphée et Eurydice", 1774 

christoph willibald gluck | autograph manuscript of part of the celebrated air 'j’ai perdu mon eurydice' from "orphée et eurydice", 1774

Claude Debussy Autograph manuscript of the song Flots, palmes, sables, signed (“Ach. Debussy”) an essentially fair-copy manuscript, scored for voice and piano, notated in black ink on up to four three-stave systems per page, with an autograph DEDICATORY TITLE-PAGE TO HIS MUSE AND FIRST LOVE MARIE-BLANCHE VASNIER (“a Madame Vasnier. / Flots, palmes. Sables. (poésie tirée des Nuits persannes d’Armand Renaud) Musique. Ach. Debussy”), the text beginning “Loin des yeux du monde”, dated and signed in bold stylized fashion at the end (“2 Juin 1882 Ach. Debussy”), with a number of deletions, corrections, annotations and revisions by the composer, some in pencil, with an autograph three-bar draft, possibly relating to the song, contained on the otherwise blank last leaf 6 pages in all (on 4 leaves), including title-page and an otherwise blank leaf with a 3-bar draft, with two blanks, oblong 4to (c. 270 x 352 mm), stamp of the “Société des Auteurs …3 Oct 1947-621,602…Paris” to title and first blank page, unbound, modern cloth folding case, vertical folds, first and last leaf joined at spine with old transparent adhesive tape, outer pages browned and with some marginal staining, a few tiny tears to edges, very small loss of paper to three corners, not affecting text THIS IS THE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF A COMPLETE SONG BY THE NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD COMPOSER, DEDICATED TO HIS FIRST LOVE. It is currently unpublished in the modern critical edition of Debussy’s works. It was while acting as accompanist for Madame Moreau-Sainti’s singing classes that the young composer met the soprano Marie-Blanche Vasnier, fourteen years his senior and married to the Parisian civil servant Henri Vasnier. Part lover, part muse and part mother figure, she was the inspiration behind nearly thirty of his early songs, including the present one. Also significant in shaping the composer’s early musical aesthetic was the large library at the Vasnier residence, for it was here that Debussy became acquainted with the poetry of Paul Verlaine, Théodore de Banville, and Leconte de Lisle. Madame Vasnier’s exceptionally high and supple voice encouraged Debussy to write florid and ornate vocal lines, as in the present song Flots, palmes, sables, where Debussy’s vocal arabesques are used to great effect in invoking the “waves”, “palms” and “sands” of Armand Renaud’s Persian-inspired exotic lyric. It would appear that Debussy began the song - for voice and piano - in late 1881 or early 1882, and then completed it with a harp part in June 1882. There are no other autograph sources for the work, with the exception of the harp part, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown.

View 1 of Lot 47: Claude Debussy | Autograph manuscript of the song “Flots, palmes, sables”, signed, 1882

claude debussy | autograph manuscript of the song “flots, palmes, sables”, signed, 1882

Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana. Part 2

(Presidents of the United States) Autographs of the Presidents of the United States, a finely bound collection from George Washington to Harry S. Truman 4to album (273 x 200 mm). Contains 32 presidential autographs, comprising 31 clipped signatures and 1 autograph note signed by Lincoln, laid down in custom folders, facing portraits of each president opposite the autographs, and with a central windowed leaf, the front covers of the folders are calligraphically titled and numbered, with a patriotic red and blue stripe; condition varies, with a few instances of light toning and pale spotting, generally quite minor and mostly affecting the earlier autographs, the folders with occasional light soiling, and one small pale stain. The folders housed in a custom red morocco-backed clamshell case, gilt; staining and wear, the front joint cracked but the hinge is holding, cracking, toning, and losses to the leather spine. The collection includes: George Washington, signature clipped from a letter, annotation reading "at Pumpton" next to autograph, an archaic spelling of Pompton, NJ, thus evidently a Revolutionary War-era signature from July 1777 or March 1782, when Washington stayed in the town; light toning, old flattened folds, a few closed cracks in the paper.John Adams, a shaky signature on an envelope evidently from an aging Adams in Quincy, MA, to his Grandson, Cadet Thomas B. Adams, at Norwich Academy in Vermont, dated October 27th, [1822], franked "free" in the upper right corner; a few faint spots.Thomas Jefferson, signature clipped from on envelope, franked "Free"; lightly foxed.James Monroe, signature clipped from a partly printed document, dated 1818, thus signed during his presidency; foxing, an old flattened fold, and some dampstaining.James Madison, signature clipped from a letter, "with sincere esteem and respect"; lightly toned.John Quincy Adams, with "Department of State" annotation above the autograph; spotting.Andrew Jackson; light toning.Martin Van Buren, signature clipped from a letter, "very truly yours."William H. Harrison.John Tyler.James K. Polk, signature clipped from a letter, "I am very sincerely your friend," with writing on the verso showing through.Zachary Taylor, signature clipped from a letter, signed as "Col. 1st. Regt. U.S. Army, thus circa 1832 to 1846; trimmed close on the right edge.Millard Fillmore; clipped signature from an envelope, franked "free."Franklin Pierce, clipped signature from a letter, dated January 11, 1862, mailed from his home in Concord, N.H.James Buchanan, clipped signature from a document.Abraham Lincoln, an autograph note signed as president on a small piece of paper, dated March 17, 1865, regarding a confederate taking a loyalty pledge in return for amnesty - "Let the man take the oath of Dec. 8, 1863"; old flattened folds.Andrew Johnson, clipped signature apparently from an blue paper envelope printed "[T]ennessee" and "FREE," signed as "Gov"ernor, thus likely dating from 1862-1865, the period when he was Military Governor of Tennessee.Ulysses S. Grant, clipped signature annotated "Lt. Gen," thus likely dating from 1864-1866.Rutherford B. Hayes.James Garfield.Chester A. Arthur, clipped signature from a letter, signed as "Collector," while he was serving as Collector of the Port of New York from 1871 to 1878.Grover Cleveland, signature on card, dated "Febr. 24, 1890."Benjamin Harrison, dated February 11, 1891, thus signed during his presidency.William McKinley.Theodore Roosevelt.William Howard Taft.Woodrow Wilson, signature on White House stationery, dated 10 March, 1913.Warren G. Harding, signature on White House stationery.Calvin Coolidge, on Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts stationery.Herbert Hoover.Franklin Delano Roosevelt.Harry Truman, signature on White House stationery; tipped in.

View 1 of Lot 383: (Presidents of the United States) | An album with the autograph of every President from Washington to Truman

(presidents of the united states) | an album with the autograph of every president from washington to truman

[RMS Queen Mary]—Autograph album An autograph album, largely compiled on RMS Queen Mary, including on her maiden voyage, with the signatures of actors, sports personalities, and others, including Erich von Stroheim, Larry Adler, Irene Dunne, Helen Hayes, Dolores del Rio, Evelyn Laye, Noel Coward, Ricardo Cortez, Errol Flynn, Mary Pickford, Fred Perry, John Henry Lewis, and Pam Barton, 58 pages, oblong 8vo (112 x 135 mm), 1936 to 1954 (but chiefly 1936), black cloth, housed in a collector's box signed by Paul Wright as Captain of Queen Mary 2, wear to covers and spine, loss to front pastedown, some light spotting RMS Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and operated as a transatlantic liner until 1967 (except during the war years, when she carried troops). This album appears to have been compiled by a Miss R. Richards, who worked on the ship's telephone switchboard (she is named on a press cutting that is loosely inserted and her name is partially visible on the front pastedown).

View 1 of Lot 88: Maritime—Queen Mary (ship). Autograph Album

maritime—queen mary (ship). autograph album

Beatrix Potter Four autograph letters signed (“H.B. Heelis”), to Professor and Mrs James Hanley, arranging a visit (“…I shall be pleased to offer such rations as available, mainly lettuces!...”), then discussing wartime food production and land management on her Lake District farms (“…The most useful work is draining, fox killing, keeping walls repaired, and brackens…”), 9 pages, 4to and 8vo, Castle Cottage, Sawrey, Ambleside, 16 July 1942–26 March 1943, with an autograph copy of a letter to the Kendal War Agricultural Executive Committee on fields that they have demanded she bring into food production (2 pages, 13 March 1943), an autograph envelope, two retained copies of letters by Hanley, and an unrelated photograph BEATRIX POTTER ON FARMING IN THE LAKE DISTRICT IN WARTIME. Britain’s survival during World War II depended upon increasing domestic food production. Farmers were called upon to bring more land into production, and War Agricultural Executive Committees were established in every county with wide-ranging powers to manage and direct the actions of farmers. Beatrix Heelis (as she was known following her marriage to William Heelis in 1912) had spent decades building up extensive holdings in the Lake District—at her death in 1943 she left 4000 acres and 14 farms to the National Trust, a hugely important bequest that has helped to ensure the survival of the Lakeland landscape. In 1942, however, her concern was that those estates play should their part in the war effort, so she invited J.A. Hanley, Professor of Agriculture at Leeds University, to visit and give advice on how to increase production. The letters discuss such subjects as the difficulties in ploughing the stony hills of the Lake District for potatoes, the unreliability of the weather, sheep and cattle farming, her sometimes testy relationship with the Cumbrian WAEC, and the need for government support (“…The present lime subsidy stands in a class apart. It is a gift to the soil—what is the old saying ‘Earth’s honest, what you give it—it will repay.’…”) PROVENANCE: Sale, Dawson’s of Maidenhead, 24 February 2018, lot 256

View 1 of Lot 114: Beatrix Potter | Four autograph letters signed, to Prof. James Hanley, on farming in World War II, with related material, 1942-43

beatrix potter | four autograph letters signed, to prof. james hanley, on farming in world war ii, with related material, 1942-43

Pablo Picasso Autograph note (unsigned), written in crayon on square paper (226 x 161 mm), informing the reader of his whereabouts ("Maintenant je vais à la gallerie MAI et je serais apres à Flore jusque à l'heure d'aller chez Cutolli"), with an addition in pencil between the first and second lines ("d'abord chez Kahnweiler"), and another note on the verso, written in pencil in another hand ("Demandez les clefs chez la concierge"), [Paris], no plate nor date Here, Picasso makes reference to several patrons and locations that played important roles in his career in Paris. "Gallerie MAI" likely refers to the Salon de Mai, an association of French artists formed in 1943 known for its exhibitions, including of Picasso's work. "Flore" undoubtedly denotes the Café de Flore, a historic coffeehouse and famous haunt for writers, philosophers, and artists including Picasso. The next stop in Picasso's day, according to the note, was "chez Cutolli", referring to Marie Cuttoli, his lifelong friend and business partner, whose penchant for tapestries and carpets both revived the art form and encouraged Picasso's creation of woven cartoons. Among Picasso's preeminent supporters was gallery owner Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, also mentioned in his note. A champion of the Cubist movement, Kahnweiler was one of the first to recognise Picasso's talent.

View 1 of Lot 107: Pablo Picasso | Autograph note in crayon on squared paper

pablo picasso | autograph note in crayon on squared paper

John Cage Autograph note signed ("Please do not play or open the piano. J.C.") written in pencil on a single small notebook leaf, framed and glazed, printed label to back of frame (“Note left by John Cage at Princeton, c. 1950”) 1 page, overall size c. 238 x 182 mm, no place [Princeton], c. 1950, some discoloration of the paper This suggestive note cannot help being read in the context of John Cage’s most significant and notorious piece, 4’ 33’’, not only an icon of twentieth-century postwar avant-garde music, but also the epitome of Cage’s aesthetic of silence. This work, which was apparently conceived of in the late 1940s, involved the performer or performers (of any instrument or instruments, but most often a pianist) sitting in silence for the duration of the piece’s three movements. The score itself, marked "tacet", only instructs the performer to be silent, though, as premiered by pianist David Tudor at Woodstock, NY, on 29 August, 1952, the opening and shutting of the keyboard lid served to demarcate the individual movements.

View 1 of Lot 37: John Cage | Autograph note signed, c. 1950

john cage | autograph note signed, c. 1950

A Marvelous Journey: The Collection of Maurice Tempelsman

Emerson, Ralph Waldo The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1903-1914 20 vols (of 22), lacking final 2 volumes of Journals, 8vo (220 x 125 mm). Autograph manuscript leaf (205 x 125 mm) window-mounted into vol 1, titles in red and black, photogravures and frontispiece portraits of Emerson mounted on india paper, publisher’s signature on limitation leaf; few spots, some leaves unopened, some uncut, lightly toned, small tear to limitation leaf of vol 5. Green morocco boards, gilt-decorated, spine gilt-lettered with raised bands in six compartments, gilt dentelles, pink morocco doubloures, top edges gilt, moiré endpapers; spines variously sunned, minor scuffing and wear to extremities, few volumes with chipping and scuffs to headcaps, front hinge of vol 1 cracked but holding. The Autograph Centenary Edition of the author's works, journals, and essays, numbered 265 of 600 copies, with a manuscript leaf bound in. The leaf is a portion of his "Man the Reformer” lecture, delivered in front of the Mechanics’ Apprentices’ Library Association in Boston on 25 January 1841. Emerson posits the role of the farmer and its intimate relationship to land, diligence, and self-sufficiency as the ideal model of social reform.

View 1 of Lot 3: Ralph Waldo Emerson |  The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the autograph centenary edition

ralph waldo emerson | the complete works of ralph waldo emerson, the autograph centenary edition

Einstein, Albert Autograph letter signed (“A. Einstein”), to an unnamed recipient, Berlin, 19 March 1929 1 page (leaf) (295 x 188 mm), headed stationary of Haberlandstrasse 5, Berlin, watermarked; some creases, wear and browning to horizontal fold with small tears at outer margin and center. The scientist advocates for the care of a friend shortly before her death: “[Erna Löwenstein] is part of my personal group of friends, and I would appreciate it if you will take care of her in a most sensitive and careful manner." It is unclear exactly what the relationship between Einstein and Löwenstein was at the time of this letter, and Löwenstein would pass away just three months after Einstein's letter of support. A typical middle-class Jewish family, the Löwenstein family worked in the grain industry and enjoyed a seemingly stable life in pre-war Dusseldorf. Erna Löwenstein’s brother was Alfred Flechtheim, art dealer and collector of predominantly modernist works and founder of art magazine Der Quernschnitt. While Erna's daughter, Thea Löwenstein, would later remember her childhood as some of her best years, the rise of Nazi Party and the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws, which codified the persecution of the Jewish people, occurred during her adulthood. Freshly married, Erna and her husband Fred Klestadt obtained visas in 1937 and depart for New York and later Ohio. Their belongings and family papers are located at the United States Holocaust Museum within the Fritz and Thea Löwenstein Klestadt family collection. As a prime target of the regime himself, Einstein would continuously oppose Germany's ascent into National Socialism. After resigning from the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin and renouncing his citizenship in 1933, the famed scientist would continue to write affidavits for American visas on behalf of those attempting to flee the ever-present persecution. REFERENCES Klestadt Family Papers, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

View 1 of Lot 475: Einstein, Albert | Autograph letter signed, 19 March 1929

einstein, albert | autograph letter signed, 19 march 1929

Anton Rubinstein Autograph musical quotation signed (“Ant. Rubinstein”) from the Fifth Barcarolle, in A minor (no. 7 from Miscellanées, op.93) comprising four bars notated in brown ink on two hand-drawn staves, with autograph tempo marking (“Moderato assai”), signed and dated below the music 1 page, overall size (185 x 262 mm), framed and glazed, Milan, 28 November 1873

View 1 of Lot 126: Anton Rubinstein | Autograph musical quotation signed, from the Fifth Barcarolle, in A minor, 28 November 1873

anton rubinstein | autograph musical quotation signed, from the fifth barcarolle, in a minor, 28 november 1873

McCarthy, Cormac Three early autograph letters signed, regarding Blood Meridian and the 1985 Spur Award for literature, written in 1986 Three autograph letters, one page each (280 x 217 mm). Each signed ("Cormac McCarthy"), with two addressed to Charlotte Hinger and one to Judy Alter; old folds and minor creases, two letters with neat annotations in another hand. [With:] Two typed letters signed, one page each (215 x 140 mm and 280 x 217 mm). Each addressed to Charlotte Hinger. [And:] Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian. New York: Random House, 1985. 8vo. Original cloth-backed boards, spine gilt-lettered. Original dust-jacket; small nick to foot of spine panel. First edition. Three letters from the notoriously reclusive author, related to Blood Meridian and the 1985 Spur Award. With the copy of Blood Meridian McCarthy submitted for consideration. "Dear Judy[,] I was not able to attend the Western Writers of America convention in Fort Worth this past June but if my recollection is correct I was supposed to get a scroll and I am writing to you to ask how I may obtain it." The Judy mentioned is Judy Alter, who once served as president of Western Writers of America, and was former secretary of the Texas Institute of Letters. The Spur Awards are literary prizes given annually by Western Writers of America, and Blood Meridian would have been considered for the 1985 award for fiction, which was presented in 1986. Despite the merits of Blood Meridian, McCarthy had stiff competition, and the prize was ultimately awarded to Larry McMurtry for Lonesome Dove. Alter passed McCarthy's request for the scroll or certificate on to Charlotte Hinger, who was chairman of the 1985 Spur Award. In a letter dated 26 September 1986 (a copy of which is included here), she wrote to the author: "Judy Alter forwarded your note regarding your finalist certificate. As you can see by the enclosed memo, I sent it to Random House, September 5. Please let me know if you don't receive it in very short time. [...] BLOOD MERIDIAN was an especially intriguing book that I personally enjoyed very much. Congratulations on your fine contribution to western literature." Three months later, McCarthy responded: "Dear Charlotte Hinge[,] I've been our of the country (South America) for two months but I don't think I acknowledged receipt of the certificate. It did arrive and I was very pleased to have it." Cormac McCarthy is now regarded as one of the greatest novelists America has ever produced. He presented to the public a reclusive, austere, inscrutable facade, and personal correspondence of McCarthy's is scarce on the market. The present letters offer a rare and intimate look into McCarthy's ambitions as a writer.

View 1 of Lot 416: McCarthy, Cormac | Three early autograph letters signed, regarding a literary prize  

mccarthy, cormac | three early autograph letters signed, regarding a literary prize

(Impressionists) A group of three framed letters, comprising: Pissarro, Camille Autograph letter signed ("C. Pissarro") to his wife, Julie Vellay, "ma chère Julie," Paris, Jeudi, [no date, but circa 1893], discussing the theatre, Paul Signac, Octave Mirbeau, and their children, notably his talented but short-lived son Felix ("Titi") and his "très jolies" artworks. 2-pages in ink on a single sheet (170 x 223 mm, to sight). Lightly toned in the margins, an erased pencil annotation and a short edge tear in the upper right corner. Framed with a reproduction of a Pissarro Paris streetscape. Monet, Claude Autograph letter signed, to Miss Gladys Deacon (later Gladys Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough), Giverny, 25 October, 1914, discussing seeing her during her trip to France, "that is, if the Zeppelins permit you," WWI, and Monet's excuses for writing in pencil, "I have such bad handwriting that it becomes illegible with a pen." 3-pages in pencil on a single folded sheet of Giverny mourning stationery (198 x 255 mm, to sight). A small strip of tape along the fold. Framed, with the original mailing envelope, and a portrait of Monet. Renoir, Pierre Auguste Autograph letter signed, to "Cher Monsieur," 23 May, [19]02, "I am in Paris, and will receive you and your collectors whenever you wish. I should, however, tell you that I have not a great deal that I could part with at the moment." 1-page in ink (125 x 171 mm, to sight). Framed, with a photograph of Renoir. Please note that these have not been examined out of frames. PROVENANCE Purchased from Kenneth Rendell Gallery

View 1 of Lot 443: (Impressionists) — Pissarro, Monet, and Renoir | A group of three autograph letters

(impressionists) — pissarro, monet, and renoir | a group of three autograph letters

Captain James Cook Manuscript in French of Cook's third voyage to Hawaii, a fair copy. Ca. 1785 2 volumes, folio (320 x 204 mm). Manuscript in ink, titled "3e Voy. de Cook," unbound, the volumes each a single gathering of folded bifolia, with a laid in singleton, comprising 91 leaves written recto and verso, paginated from pp. 768–950, with 5 blanks at the rear of volume 2, the paper watermarked with a potted plant and countermarked E MARAY | G BALENCON | 1785; the sewing perished in first volume and largely holding in the second, with some light toning and wear along the deckled edges, very infrequent and minor staining, the second volume with the first bifolia split along the fold with losses touching the first few letters of about 10 lines of text. An unrelated contemporary manuscript slip, written in a different hand, found laid in. Housed in a cloth clamshell case. The earliest manuscript description of Hawaii, and the death of Captain Cook, that has ever surfaced. While various logbooks, letters, and charts relating to Cook survive, mostly in institutional collections, this is the only contemporary manuscript narrative of Cook's voyages that we can trace. As such, this is the earliest known manuscript of Cook’s third voyage in any language. It is a new discovery, unrecorded in all bibliographies, worthy of further study. Cook’s voyages made a strong impression in France. The French crown, inspired by his successes and driven by a longstanding rivalry with Great Britain, Enlightenment curiosity, and the pursuit of new trade routes, decided to launch their own expeditions to the Pacific. Throughout the 1770s, contemporary with Cook’s voyages, the French explorers de Bougainville, du Fresne, de Surville, and Kerguelen all visited the Pacific. The most significant post-Cook French voyage, however, was that of Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de La Pérouse (see lot 488). His expedition, ordered by King Louis XVI, was directly modeled after and designed to compete with Cook’s voyage. La Pérouse set sail in 1785, surveyed the coasts of Chile, Easter Island, Hawaii, Alaska, California, and Northeast Asia, before tragically disappearing in 1788 after leaving Botany Bay in Australia. His voyage was followed by that of Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni, chevalier d'Entrecasteaux, who in 1792 attempted to find La Perouse and explored the Australian coast. In this context, it is evident that the Frech public were intensely interested in Pacific voyages throughout the 1780s and 1790s. To meet this demand, three translations of Cook’s voyages were published in France in the 1780s. These include John Rickman's Troisiéme voyage de Cook, ou journal d'une expedition faite dans la Mer Pacifique... published in 1782, and Jean-François de La Harpe’s abridged version, Abrégé de l'histoire générale des voyages, published in 1786. However, the present text differs substantially from these two, so it is apparent that they were not used as the source material for this manuscript. Instead. the text closely follows Jean-Nicolas Démeunier's abridged French translation of Cook's Third Voyage, Troisiéme Voyage de Cook, ou Voyage à l'Ocean Pacifique, published in Paris in 1785. The compiler condensed and edited Démeunier's text, closely following it, while often paraphrasing from it. For example, just after the death of Cook, Démeunier writes: "Ainsi termina ses jours, le plus célebre & le plus grand des Navigateurs, après tant de glorieuses entreprises, couronnées des plus heureux succès!" That same moment in the manuscript has been tersely trimmed down to: "Ainsi pour le grand Cook." The text contains numerous corrections, strikethroughs, and single-word insertions, which oftentimes appear to be copying errors or the compiler having second thoughts about word choice. Some words or passages are underlined, and others are placed in parentheses. While transcribing James King's narrative about Canton, the scribe complains in the margins about misprints that are making it difficult to be sure of the narrative—this is a strong indication that he was working from a printed source. As it turns out, Démeunier's translation of that passage contains some obvious printing errors. There are no apparent gaps in the manuscript, though the compiler omits certain parts of the source text that he deemed nonessential. For example, he does not include any of the preliminary matter that appears in Démeunier's translation, and he skips the brief biography of Cook that appears immediately after his death. As such, this is the compete narrative of Cook's third voyage, beginning with The Discovery setting sail from Plymouth on 12 July 1776, and ending in the same place as the Admiralty account, per Démeunier's translation, with King’s statement: “La Découverte ne perdit pas un seul homme.” It is apparent that this manuscript is a fair copy intended for publication. Not only does the text show careful editing, including hundreds of corrections, cross-outs, and single word insertions, but the underlines and parenthesis were evidently done with a mind to future indexing. However, we have been unable to locate a printed version of this text. For whatever reason, it seems to have never made it to press. The next earliest manuscript narrative accounts of Hawaii, not ship’s logs or journals, that we can locate all date to the early 19th century once Christian missionaries arrived on the islands. As such, this manuscript predates any similar documents by at least two or three decades and is the earliest known account of the Hawaiian Islands in manuscript form. REFERENCES Jean-Nicolas Démeunier. Troisiéme Voyage de Cook, ou Voyage à l'Ocean Pacifique... Paris: Hotel de Thou, 1785 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k10733462/f1.item)

View 1 of Lot 472: [Cook, Captain James] | An 18th century French autograph manuscript of Cook's Third Voyage, the earliest known manuscript description of Hawaii and the death of Cook

[cook, captain james] | an 18th century french autograph manuscript of cook's third voyage, the earliest known manuscript description of hawaii and the death of cook

Ludwig van Beethoven Autograph sketches for the overture Die Weihe des Hauses ("The Consecration of the House"), op.124 a multi-layered four-page composing manuscript, a sketch-draft for the first section [maestoso and sostenuto], bb.19–50, including the whole of the main theme from the forte restatement, and the following fourteen bars [un poco più vivo], notated in dark brown ink and pencil on two eight-stave systems per page, without instrumental designations, the upper half of the system containing music for violin I and bass, the lower half music for winds, the chief parts entered first in ink, with additional entries and corrections made later in pencil and also in ink with a thicker nib 4 pages, oblong 4to (c. 248 x 310 mm), a bifolium of 16-stave paper, bookplates of Yale University Music Library and Edward Francis Searles to lower pastedown, with a letter signed from Sir George Grove to Arthur Hill, advising that the manuscript be shown to the Beethoven scholar J.S. Shedlock, 4 pages, 8vo, London, 7 June 1893, and an autograph letter by the violinist Joseph Ludwig to Hill, identifying the work, 2 pages, 8vo, Maida Hill, 17 July 1893, mounted on the front pastedown, together with (all loose) autograph letters to Hill by Shedlock, discussing the sketch, 2 pages, 8vo, St John’s Wood, 2 August 1893, and Otto Goldschmidt, discussing the prices of the sketches and other manuscripts to be sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson, 4 pages, 8vo, South Kensington, 24 April 1894, an incomplete letter signed by Hill to Searles, congratulating him on his acquisition of the sketch, 2 pages, 4to, [1894], and the catalogue entry for the sketches in the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Loan Exhibition, June–July 1904 (no.483a), laid down on headed paper of the exhibition committee, binder’s label to front pastedown (“Bound by G.A. Brown & Co. 1 Avery Row New Bond Street…”), mounted at spine to lower cover, late nineteenth-century/early twentieth-century yellow morocco, with black morocco title-piece gilt (“M.S. / Beethoven. Part of a Sketch Book.”) and black and gilt decorative border, [Baden, September 1822], some discolouration to outer pages, light scattered spotting, vertical creases, a few tiny marginal tears THIS IS A SPECTACULAR WORKING MANUSCRIPT FROM BEETHOVEN’S LATE PERIOD. ONCE OWNED BY THE LEGENDARY NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOPRANO JENNY LIND ("THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE"), IT HAS NOT BEEN AVAILABLE TO MODERN BEETHOVEN SCHOLARSHIP AND REMAINS UNPUBLISHED. The overture Die Weihe des Hauses is one of only three large-scale works involving orchestra that Beethoven wrote during his final decade, sharing that honour with two of the composer’s greatest masterpieces, the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. It was written at breakneck speed at the end of September 1822, while Beethoven was taking the cure at Baden, near Vienna. On 13 September, Beethoven wrote to the publisher C.F. Peters in Leipzig: “And hardly had I arrived here when I met a theatrical manager who is building a theatre in Vienna which he is opening with one of my compositions. So to please him I have had to compose a few new movements”. The theatrical manager was Karl Friedrich Hensler, who planned to celebrate the opening of the rebuilt Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna on 3 October 1822 (the name day of Emperor Franz I of Austria) with Carl Meisl’s play Die Weihe des Hauses ("The Consecration of the House"), to which were to be adapted the music of Beethoven’s 1811 musical entertainment Die Ruinen von Athen, op.113. In the end, only one new movement was composed, a chorus with solo soprano and violin (WoO 98), together with a new overture (op.124), delivered with only a day to spare before the opening. Beethoven himself conducted the first performance, despite his by then severe hearing loss, gallantly assisted at his right hand by the theatre Kapellmeister Franz Gläser, who also conducted subsequent performances. Beethoven’s self-appointed factotum Anton Schindler led the orchestra as violinist. A moving account of the premiere was left by Gläser in his fragmentarily surviving autobiography: On the day of the premiere of this work, which the celebrated Master [Beethoven] conducted himself, I was assigned at his request to assist him; as he was sadly robbed of his hearing, he could not well do without assistance...I was deeply touched when he suddenly asked me in a painfully agitated voice during the production of the opera to conduct a very difficult recitative in his place. At the next fixed tempo I let him continue, and as he called out, with tears in his eyes, "I cannot hear the words", I took this hint and guided the orchestra during difficult passages, in the ritardandos and accelerandos, and so forth. As was attested later, I had even at one point, unbeknown to myself, held the great Master's hand, until the ship was sailing smoothly on its course again. One might jokingly suppose that I had at this moment conducted the great Master himself. Following its initial performance, which marked Beethoven’s last appearance in public as a conductor, the overture was performed frequently to great acclaim—and most notably at Beethoven’s legendary concert in the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, on 7 May 1824, which saw in addition the first performance of his Ninth Symphony. This was the famous occasion at which the deaf composer, his back to the audience and unaware of the tumultuous applause, had to be turned round by the contralto Caroline Unger so that he could acknowledge it. No less distinguished than the work’s performance history is the provenance of the manuscript, once belonging to the great nineteenth-century opera singer Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale”. One of Beethoven’s most exhilarating orchestral works, the overture is at the same time the composer’s thrilling homage to Handel, the musician he revered above all others and whose works he was then actively studying (a forty-volume set of Handel’s works was a treasured possession). Adopting the outline of the Baroque French overture, it consists of a slow introduction—a magnificent 88-bar affair, complete with signature dotted rhythms—followed by an irresistible fugal allegro whose theme, with its fifth-step outline, may have been influenced by a similar fugal theme in the overture to Handel’s Solomon (many years earlier Beethoven had made a string quartet transcription—Hess 36—of the fugue from that overture). The present manuscript documents Beethoven’s attempts at bb.19–50 of the slow introduction. It bears witness to a more advanced stage of Beethoven’s work on the overture than is the case with the other surviving—also unpublished—sketch material, contained in two sketchbooks in Berlin (see below). Here Beethoven sketches in short score on systems of eight staves, with violin I and bass (the latter often heavily corrected in pencil and ink with a thick nib) in the upper half of the system, with melody-carrying parts for winds sketched in the lower half; in the sketchbook Artaria 201, much of the sketching is on two-stave systems. And it is typical of the composer’s working practices that the main theme should achieve its characteristic falling contour and double-dotted rhythm at a later stage still, i.e. in the autograph full score. Especially striking features of the manuscript are the heavy deletions and corrections to the bass part in the first half (this clearly gave Beethoven particular trouble), and the contrasting notation of the wind parts on the final page (the trumpet fanfares in ink, the heroic semiquaver scales for the bassoons in pencil). All other known autograph sources for Die Weihe des Hauses are preserved today in European institutions: the autograph score (Stadtbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Vienna [MH 1896/c]); other sketches contained in the sketchbooks Artaria 201, pp.86-111, and 205/I, pp.5ff., 20-30 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin); and a bassoon II part (Beethoven-Haus, Bonn [HCB Mh 29]). In addition to these sources there exist also five scribal scores reviewed by Beethoven (including those in the British Library, London [RPS MS 15], the Schott Verlagsarchiv, Mainz [8a: the first edition Stichvorlage], and the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn [BH 89: made in connection with the first performance]), as well as a set of incomplete scribal parts (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna [XII 7905]), likewise reviewed by Beethoven. The overture was published by Schott in Mainz in 1825, with a dedication to Prince Nikolai Borisovich Galitzin. LITERATURE: Emily Anderson, trans., and ed., The letters of Beethoven, ii (1961), pp.970 and 973–974; F. Lorenz, 'Franz Gläser: Autobiographie—Erinnerungen an Beethoven', Die Musikforschung, xxxi (1978), pp.43–46; Douglas Johnson, Alan Tyson, Robert Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks (1985), pp.275, 394–396; Beethoven: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ii/1 (1974), passim; Barry Cooper, ed., The Beethoven Companion (1991), pp.252–255; Ludwig van Beethoven. Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, i (2014), pp.803ff., especially 808 (source I/1/3) PROVENANCE: In the possession of the singer Jenny Lind (1820–1887), "for more than thirty years" (see above letter of her widower, Otto Goldschmidt); Otto Goldschmidt (1829–1907), until 1894; Edward Francis Searles (1841–1920), Methuen, Massachusetts, from 1894; Yale University Music Library; Christie’s, London, 24 June 1992 (lot 3)

View 1 of Lot 16: Ludwig van Beethoven | Autograph sketches for the overture "Die Weihe des Hauses", op.124, [1822], UNPUBLISHED

ludwig van beethoven | autograph sketches for the overture "die weihe des hauses", op.124, [1822], unpublished

Gertrude Stein Autograph letter signed, to [Duncan?] Grant, making an appointment ("...come to lunch at one o'clock Friday and we will go out to Picassos afterwards..."), 1 page, 8vo, headed stationery of 27 Rue de Fleurus, n.d., creased [with:] Photographic portrait postcard, depicting Stein and Alice B. Toklas on an aircraft steps in 1934, photographer's stamp of Carl Van Vechten, with postcard text on the reverse dated 29 November 1962 27 Rue de Fleurus was the site of Stein's salon, which was a huge influence on the development of modernism in art and literature and brought together such figures as Picasso, Fitzgerald, Matisse, Apollinaire, Joyce, and Pound. She was also the owner of a highly important collection of Picassos. This letter is probably addressed to Duncan Grant, who first visited Stein in Paris in 1909.

View 1 of Lot 136: Gertrude Stein | Autograph letter signed, inviting Grant to visit her and Picasso, with a related photograph

gertrude stein | autograph letter signed, inviting grant to visit her and picasso, with a related photograph

The Jay T. Snider Collection of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin Autograph letter signed ("BF") to Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont ("Cher Ami"), in French, half page on a sheet of laid paper (227 x 181 mm), Passy, on or after 3 July, 1780, addressed to "Monsieur de Chaumont" on the verso, remnants of red wax seal to recto and verso, two tiny chips and a very short tear at the edges, a closed tear next to the seal, none of which affects the text of the letter, a box of sun-toning around the text. Housed in a custom brown leather clamshell case and cloth chemise, with an earlier collector's paper folder laid in, the folder with a manuscript title and an unidentified, likely French, collector's stamp. A letter that reveals much about Franklin—his diplomacy, his pragmatism, and his preference for avoiding direct conflict. Franklin writes to Chaumont in French regarding the June 1780 mutiny on board John Paul Jones's fleet's flagship, the Alliance. The recipient of this letter, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, was a French merchant who had made his fortune trading in the East Indies. He became one of the American Revolution's biggest supporters, acting as a go-between for Franklin and the French court. A close friend to Franklin, he rented him a portion of his Hôtel de Valentinois in Passy, initially at no cost, commissioned Jean-Baptiste Nini's portrait medallion of the "docteur" (see lot 118), and refitted an old French East Indiaman into a 42-gun frigate for the U.S. Navy, renamed the Bonhomme Richard. The letter, however, deals with a different ship—the frigate Alliance. When completed in 1777 in Salisbury, Massachusetts, it was the finest and fastest warship ever built in America. First named Hancock, it was renamed in honor of the new alliance between the United States and France. Alliance departed Boston in January 1779, captained by the commissioned Frenchman, Pierre Landais, carrying the Marquis de Lafayette back to France. Once arrived, despite Landais's orders to return with supplies to America, Franklin ordered the ship to join John Paul Jones's squadron. Landais obeyed Franklin but, following a nighttime collision of the Alliance and the Bonhomme Richard, as well as a heated argument between their two captains, he soon stopped taking orders from Jones. In September, the squadron took part in the Battle of Flameborough Head, off the coast of Yorkshire. The Alliance kept its distance from the action until, hours after the first shots were fired, while the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis were lashed together in a death struggle, she began firing indiscriminately into both ships. Soon after, as Bonhomme Richard sank, Jones commandeered the damaged Serapis and set sail for the Dutch Republic. Once the Alliance had returned to France, Franklin relieved Landais of his command and began an enquiry into the captain's conduct. Franklin's letter to John Paul Jones of 15 October 1779, reveals the seriousness of the matter: "I have accordingly written to him this Day acquainting him that he is charged with Disobedience of Orders in the Cruise and Neglect of his Duty in the Engagement... direct him to render himself immediately here, bringing with him such Papers or Testimonies as he may think useful in his Defence. I know not whether he will obey my Orders... it will be necessary, if he should refuse to come, that you should put him under an Arrest, and in that Case as well as if he comes, that you should either appoint some Person to command his Ship or take it upon yourself; for I know of no Person to recommend to you as fit for that Station" (Papers 30:537–538). In the end, Franklin did install Jones as captain of the Alliance. He planned to send the ship to America with arms, uniforms, and other supplies. However, it took months for Jones to ready himself. Landais, on the other hand, travelled to Lorient seeking passage to America, where he planned to acquit himself in a court martial. While there, he met Arthur Lee, the diplomat who had been sidelined after Franklin's arrival in France. Lee was also awaiting passage to the United States. He told Landais that Franklin had no authority to remove his captaincy, since he held a Continental Commission. On 12 or 13 June, with Jones in Paris and Lee at his side, Landais boarded the ship and assumed command. Around 16 June, Le Ray de Chaumont urged Franklin to command Landais to remain in port. On 19 June, he wrote a longer, more urgent letter to Franklin warning him of Arthur Lee's involvement in the affair, and now suggesting that he order the ship out of port - an unpunished mutiny at port set a bad example for the other sailors. However, when Jones arrived in Lorient on 20 June, he found that the Alliance had already weighed anchor. She had sailed to Port Louis, and was now blocked in the harbor by a boom and surrounded by three French warships with orders to fire if she tried to escape. Jones, however, interceded on the Alliance's behalf — he apparently wished to avoid losing the ship and harming Franco-American relations. Captain Landais took command of the frigate Alliance and absconded with it to America, Franklin had originally ordered that the crew not be paid for its trip—he was obviously angry at being so blatantly disobeyed, and he did not want to support mutineers. However, in the present letter, written to Le Ray de Chaumont after the ship has already departed France, Franklin's fury seems to have cooled: "Notre Intention en donnant l’Ordre de ne pas payer leurs Portions a ceux qui avoient signé le Mutinerie, n’etant qu’un Expedient temporaire pour les reclamer; il me semble qu’actuellement il sera mieux de rapeller cette Ordre; parceque il y a en Amerique des Loix pour les punir; & je crois qu’il sera bon de payer les portions de ces gens en France plutôt qu’en Amerique, parceque ils ont nombre des Creanciers à l’Orient qui perdront beaucoup de leur Droits si l’Argent est envoyé en Amerique, & cela causera grand Clameur. Je suis donc d’Avis de payer à Messrs. Puchelberg tout ce qui est dû aux Matelots & aux Officiers du produit des Prises. On evitera par ce moyen nombre de Soupçons & de Censures—" ["As our intention in giving the order to not repay the shares of those who had signed the mutiny agreement was only a temporary expedient to secure their return; it seems to me that it would now be better to revoke this order; this is because, in America, we have laws for punishing them; and I think that it will be good to pay these individuals' shares in France rather than in America, as they have numerous creditors in Lorient who would stand to lose a significant portion of their claims were the funds to be sent to America, and this would cause a great clamor. I am therefore of the opinion to pay Misters Puchelberg the all that is due to the sailors and officers from the profits of the prizes. We will, in this way, avoid much suspicion and censure"; translation by Noah Goldrach.] The Alliance departed soon after. Landais, however, proved to be a disastrous captain, abusing his men and making unsafe decisions. Thinking him insane, his officers mutinied, forcibly relieving him of his command on 11 August. When the Alliance arrived in Boston, naval authorities found Landais guilty and removed him from service. "A beleaguered Franklin decided it was best to let others sort it all out. He had other things in France to deal with" (Isaacson, p. 390). REFERENCES Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Oberg, 32:544–545; Walter Isaacson. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. (New York: 2003); "Alliance I (Frigate)," in Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, (2015), (https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/alliance-i.html)

View 1 of Lot 122: Benjamin Franklin | Autograph letter to Le Ray de Chaumont, regarding a mutiny on the Frigate"'Alliance," 1780

benjamin franklin | autograph letter to le ray de chaumont, regarding a mutiny on the frigate"'alliance," 1780

Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography... Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin & Company, 1906 Large 8vo (276 x 189 mm). Limited edition, one of 1,000 copies, illustrated with photo-reproductions and photogravures, and extra illustrated with 66 items, including documents, autograph letters, engravings, and more, bound in, on stubs, laid down, or window-mounted; faint toning mostly in the margins, occasional spotting, infrequent offsetting. Full crushed red morocco by Macdonald, spine gilt with raised bands and six compartments, boards triple gilt-ruled, board edges and dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt; rubbing and light wear at spine extremities and two corners, the binding defective with the front hinge fully cracked, the front board and spine separated from the text block, but holding at the rear hinge, the red silk ribbon detached but present. A finely bound, extra-illustrated, limited edition of Franklin's autobiography. There are 66 additional items included in this work. The highlights include: 1) Document signed by Benjamin Franklin as President of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, May 23, 1786. Addressed to Treasurer David Rittenhouse, requesting that a payment of £125 be paid to Charles Biddle for salary due him as Vice President of the State. 2) 2-page autograph letter signed from William Carmichael to John Lamb, July 1786, mentioning Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin and discussing prisoners from the Barbary War. 3) One-page autograph letter signed from Peter Collinson to Cadwalader Colden, May 1761, discussing Lord Halifax quitting the Board of Trade, and noting that "Your son David's Electrical Papers I have received from our friend Franklin and have tied them up with your principles to be desposed of as you have directed." 4) 3-page autograph letter signed from John Bigelow to Ellen Douglas Steadman, March 1890, on mourning stationery, discussing legal and political matters. 5) Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Certificate for $1,000, dated 1838, engraved, with a portrait of Franklin. 6) Engraved portraits, many of Franklin, but also Charles II, John Locke, Rev. George Whitehead, John Fothergill, Sir Henry Clinton, and others. 7) Engraved views of New York, Yale College, Westminster in London, and Charleston in South Carolina. 8) A nineteenth-century Franklin-inspired Rebus, "The Art of Making Money … by Doctor Franklin," folded, split along central fold, with a few chips and tears at the edges. 9) Historical prints, such as "Drafting the Declaration of Independence," and more. PROVENANCE Heritage Auctions, 12 November, 2020, lot 47013 (undesignated consignor)

View 1 of Lot 155: Benjamin Franklin |  Franklin's autobiography, extra-illustrated with a signed document, autograph letters, engraved portraits, and more

benjamin franklin | franklin's autobiography, extra-illustrated with a signed document, autograph letters, engraved portraits, and more

An apparently unpublished letter by Darwin regarding a new second American edition of Origin of Species; autographed and signed ("Ch. Darwin") to Charles Layton, Appleton's London agent.<ul><li>Charles Darwin (English).</li><li>Down, Beckenham, Kent: November 26, [1869].</li><li>3 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bifolium of Down, Bromley, Kent, stationery, with "Bromley" crossed out and corrected to Beckenham.</li></ul> Charles Darwin (1809-1882) writes to Charles Layton, London agent for Appleton, about bringing out a revised and expanded second American edition of On the Origin of Species. The letter is a reply to Layton's of the day before, in which he'd inquired after stereotyped plates of the English edition. In part: "The last or 5th Edit. of the Origin was printed off some months ago &amp; it is impossible to supply stereotypes. I hope that you will inform Mr. Appleton of what I have said of the increased size of this last &amp; 5th Edit. As 2000 copies of this Edit were printed, there will not be a new Edit. for a considerable time ... If Mr. Appleton will reprint this 5th Edition ... I will pledge myself to endevour to persuade Mr. Murray to supply stereotype plates of my new book on the Descent of Man; but as I never before heard of such such a scheme, I have no idea whether he will comply. At any rate I will please myself, on the above conditions &amp; on the terms suggested in your letter, to send over the sheets as printed &amp; stereotype casts of the woodcuts. But please remember my new book will not got to press for many months." Appleton had published the first American edition of Origin in 1860, from Murray's second English edition. In keeping with the terms of the present letter, Appleton published the second American edition, based on the 5th English edition, in 1870, followed by the first American edition of The Descent of Man in 1871.

Charles Darwin Autograph Letter Signed to Charles Layton In Regards to the Publication of On the Origin of Species

An autograph book that contains a set of the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Beatles&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Beatles</a>' <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/collectibles?query=signed&amp;locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signatures</a> in ballpoint pen. <ul><li>1 autograph book; product image shows each page of signatures within the book.</li><li>John, Paul and George have signed in blue ballpoint pen. </li><li>Ringo has autographed in red ballpoint pen. </li><li>All four members of The Beatles have added three kiss symbols ‘xxx’ under their respective signatures. </li><li>Ringo has added the word ‘Love’ above his name; Paul has written ‘To Teresa love Paul McCartney xxx (Beatles)’ – he has also added the word ‘To’ on the opposite page to the one he has signed; and George has written ‘To Teresa love from George Harrison xxx’. </li><li>John and Ringo have signed adjoining pages and Paul and George have autographed separate pages; none of the signatures are back to back.</li></ul>

Autograph Book Signed by The Beatles

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Manchester+United&amp;pfilters.dateRange=past" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Manchester United</a>: a multi-signed “Busby Babes” <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/collectibles?query=signed&amp;locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">autograph</a> sheet, circa 1956, presented with vintage shirt display.<ul><li>Manchester United: 1956.</li><li>Printed sheet titled “Manchester United Personalities”, comprising photographic portraits of members of Sir Matt Busby’s Manchester United side.</li><li>Signed in ink by a number of players including Bill Foulkes, Dennis Viollet, Johnny Berry, Jackie Blanchflower, Tommy Taylor, and, significantly, Duncan Edwards and others associated with the celebrated “Busby Babes” team of the mid-1950s.</li><li>Mounted alongside a later Manchester United shirt.</li><li>Presented framed and glazed.</li></ul> Several of the signatories were among those involved in the Munich air disaster of February 1958, lending the piece particular historical resonance. A scarce and poignant survival, such multi-signed items from the Busby Babes period are increasingly difficult to obtain, particularly those incorporating a number of players whose careers, and in some cases lives, were cut short by the 1958 Munich tragedy. The present piece offers a tangible connection to one of the most revered and emotive chapters in the history of English football. Please note: This item is excluded from complimentary shipping. Shipping quote will be calculated at time of purchase.

Multi-Signed “Busby Babes” Autograph Sheet and T-Shirt Display

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> manuscript of one of <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">Plath</a>'s earliest poems, in a version preceding the 1946 revision published in her junior high school literary magazine and collected nowhere else.<ul><li>Sylvia Plath (American).</li><li>[Wellesley, Massachusetts]: n.p, [circa 1945].&nbsp;</li><li>Single ruled leaf.</li><li>Handwritten in pencil in three stanzas, with title and "by Sylvia" above.</li><li>Housed in a custom gilt-stamped black cloth clamshell case with black leather spine.</li></ul> "The Snowflake Star" was one of a small cluster of early poems in which Plath first began experimenting with a group of images that would in many ways come to define her later work. In "A Winter Sunset," written around the same time (and published in the same issue of her junior high literary magazine The Phillipian), the moon hangs above "the bare, black skeletons of trees." And in "To Miss Cox," from later in 1946, "The winter skies are leaden / The flying snowflakes sting." Plath biographer Heather Clark identifies the beginnings of Plath's "mature poetic voice" in these poems, a voice also heard in "The Snowflake Star." Its opening lines ("On a dark and cloudy day / I wandered in the woods away") point, in all their simplicity, directly ahead to 1956, when Plath would write "I stalk like a rook, / brooding as the winter night comes on [...] Who'd walk in this bleak place?" ("Winter Landscape, With Rooks"); to 1960: "Winter dawn is the color of metal / The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves" ("Waking in Winter"); to 1962: "The woods are a well" ("Stars over the Dordogne"). "The Snowflake Star" revolves around subjects and images that would become enduring in her work: snow, winter, stars, trees. The list of poems in which these ideas are central is long and includes many of her best-known works: "Crossing the Water," "Words" ("fixed stars / Govern a life"), "Winter Trees," "Snow Blitz," "Wintering," "The Snowman on the Moor," "The Munich Mannequins" ("The snow has no voice"), "Winter Words," "To A Jilted Lover" ("a mosaic of stars / diagrams the falling years"), "Elm" — to name only a selection. Metrically precise and lettered in a dauntingly perfect hand, this three-stanza version of "Snowflake Star" was composed before the poet turned 14. Plath's juvenile diaries record that on January 10th, 1945, assigned to write a poem or story about a star, she wrote two: "King of the Ice," and "another even better 'The Snowflake Star.'" The poem was completed by February 21 of that year, but would not appear in The Phillipian until the following year (the only time it was published in any version), in February of 1946. Notably, scholar Edward Butscher's assessment of Plath's juvenilia quotes words and phrases not present in this sparer, starker draft: the "temporary return to strained gaiety and a continued pursuit of the conventional" characteristic of her other winter poems from the same period have not yet been written into the close of this version. Avoiding the "happy thought" which "lingers on" in the final stanza of the published version, this draft ends simply with the word "star," the poem's only unrhymed line, the snowflake just caught, still frozen, in the mittened hand — an ending more in keeping with Plath's later work, where danger always lurks just below the surface of beauty. Material of any kind entirely in Plath's hand is rare on the market. While typescripts of her poems appear from time to time (many submission copies to periodicals and publishers), almost all original handwritten drafts remained with Plath's papers (which now reside variously at Smith College, the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana, and Emory University). This manuscript, which originates with Plath's mother's estate, represents one of just a tiny handful of occasions when a handwritten poem of Plath's has come to market. A rare opportunity not only to own an original work in Plath's own hand, but one that prefigures many of her most important images and themes.

The Snowflake Star | Unpublished Poem

A handwritten <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Manuscripts%252C%2520Letters%252C%2520Documents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">manuscript</a> of The Mistress Of Shenstone.<ul><li>Florence L. Barclay (English).</li><li>n.p. n.p, [no later than 1910].</li><li>386 individual lines sheets, thread-bound by hand with pink ribbon, filled out in pencil on rectos only.</li><li>Original draft of the sequel to the international sensation The Rosary.</li><li>Text begins with Chapter I, "On the terrace of Shenstone," and ends with the phrase sentence of the final chapter, "Mrs. Jim Airth," in larger script (an effect reproduced in the printed final).</li><li>Editorial markings throughout.</li><li>Housed in later waxed canvas wrapper with two printed labels ("The Mistress of Shenstone") and one handwritten annotation, "1st M S of Mistress of Shenstone."</li></ul> "Mrs. Barclay is certainly entitled to rank with the most popular authors of her generation" – retrospective from publisher George Putnam While Florence Barclay was working on this manuscript, she was in the midst of a life-changing experience: her romance novel The Rosary had just become one of the biggest blockbuster novels of the Edwardian era. It was not only a runaway bestseller for years on end, but also parodied by Punch, made into at least five films, and described by the Queen of England herself as her favorite book of the year. According to Rachel Anderson, it was "said to have been read and wept over by every housemaid in the British Isles." The Mistress Of Shenstone was something of its sequel, featuring characters first introduced in The Rosary. The Mistress Of Shenstone is an exquisite romance between a widow and the man who accidentally killed her husband: like The Rosary, it combines a moving arc of emotional development with an alluring charisma between the main characters. When Barclay arrived in the United States for a book tour of Shenstone, she was greeted as a celebrity much in the way that Charles Dickens had been on his first trip to the country. In addition to photographers and journalists, she was met right off the boat by a crush of fans holding welcome banners. This experience was so unlike what was expected for English authors in the period that her daughter makes special remark upon it in her biography of the author: "To English readers it may seem a surprising outburst, and very different to anything that can be imagined as taking place in England by way of reception accorded to a private individual" (220). In 1921 Shenstone also became the first of Barclay's books (before The Rosary) to be turned into a film. This manuscript offers a window into the writing process of a famous romance author at the height of her power. In addition to the entire base text in Barclay's hand, essentially every page is revised in the same hand, in some cases extensively. Common editorial markings include crossed out words and sentences (some replaced with new text), additions to punctuation, and rearranged phrases. It is illuminating to compare the manuscript itself with the details of Barclay's writing as described in her daughter's book, Life Of Florence L. Barclay (1921). In seeking to champion her mother as an author for "ordinary readers," her daughter asserts that Barclay "had no eye to the literary connoisseur, the seeker after mere artistic effect" (242). Yet many of the revisions made by Barclay in this draft suggest that she cared much more about the art of her work than the biography claims. Altered words often reflect the author's stylistic refinements, seeking a more accurate or elevated word in place of the original (e.g., "empty" changed to "desolate"). Other changes show a focused eye for paring down. For instance, "she poured out the doctor's tea" and "passed it across the folding tea table between them" has been changed simply to "handed it to him." These decisions reflect more than a desire to "supply them [her readers] with that they wanted" (242): they show an author spending hours refining her craft. A manuscript offering the opportunity to research further into the working process of a major popular romance writer — a topic that has thus far been rarely recorded or studied.

The Mistress Of Shenstone Manuscript

An <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/collectibles?query=signed&amp;locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">autograph</a> diary page in the hand of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Muhammad+Ali&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Muhammad Ali</a>, dated Thursday, April 17th, 1969, documenting arrangements for a confirmed appearance at Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, during the height of his enforced exile from professional boxing.<ul><li>Muhammad Ali (American).</li><li>Facsimile front cover of the original diary and portrait of Ali with his family included in display.</li><li>Framed and mounted.</li></ul> The page, drawn from Ali’s personal 1969 diary, records in his distinctive hand a series of logistical notes relating to the engagement, including:<ul><li>“Crenshaw Gymnasium”</li><li>“Randolph-Macon College / Ashland, Va”</li><li>“Dean Ira L. Andrews” (contact)</li><li>Telephone numbers for both office and residence</li><li>“Hotel Reservation / Hanover House” (circled for emphasis)</li><li>A prominently noted fee of “$1000”</li></ul> This entry corresponds precisely to Ali’s documented appearance at Randolph-Macon College on April 17, 1969, one of the many speaking engagements he undertook while barred from boxing following his refusal of induction into the U.S. Army. During this period, Ali travelled extensively across American college campuses, delivering speeches that combined Nation of Islam doctrine, political commentary, and his own singular charisma, while simultaneously raising funds for his legal defense. Contemporary accounts confirm that Ali spoke at Randolph-Macon on this date, addressing students with a characteristically engaging and provocative style. The present page highlights the financial and travel arrangements underpinning his speaking tour. Such working documents, created in the moment and for immediate use, are exceedingly scarce. Unlike later signed material prepared for collectors, this diary page represents a connection to a verifiable event in one of the most consequential periods of Ali’s life. The inclusion of the speaking fee is of particular note, reflecting the economic framework through which Ali sustained himself during his years of professional exclusion, as well as the growing demand for his presence on American campuses amid the cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960s. An exceptional survival: a primary-source document linking Muhammad Ali directly to a documented public appearance during his exile years.

Page from the Personal Diary of Muhammad Ali 

Benjamin Franklin INTRODUCTION TO LOTS 82–87 The Snider Collection is especially rich in materials illuminating the long friendship between Benjamin Franklin and Mary (Polly) Stevenson Hewson (1739–1795), daughter of his London landlady, Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, as the following six lots demonstrate. The editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin describe Stevenson (later Mrs. Hewson) as “one of the charming, intelligent girls to whom [Franklin] gave the long and affectionate friendship for which he had such a talent. … Polly’s almost filial devotion to him was a major influence in her life. She had acquired an unusually good education and by the time [Franklin] arrived at Craven Street in 1757, she was spending most of her time as companion to an elderly aunt, a Mrs. Tickell, in Wanstead, a village about ten miles from London, apparently with the understanding that the aunt would leave her a comfortable estate. Nothing came of [Franklin’s] hope of having her as a daughter-in-law; in 1770 she married William Hewson, a brilliant young physician and anatomist, who four years later died from an infection incurred while dissecting. Polly devoted the rest of her life to the care and education of her two sons and daughter” (Papers 8: 122–123). In 1784, Polly and her family visited Franklin in Passy, and in 1786, about a decade after Franklin had first suggested it, she and her children moved to Philadelphia; she was with Franklin at his death. Among their voluminous and eclectic correspondence, are eight letters by Franklin (including the present) that were published in later editions of his Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Franklin reflected on their friendship in a 27 January 1783 letter to Polly: “In looking forward,—Twenty-five Years seems a long Period; but in looking back, how short!— Could you imagine that ’tis now full a Quarter of a Century since we were first acquainted!— It was in 1757. During the greatest Part of the Time I lived in the same House with my dear deceased Friend your Mother; of course you and I saw and convers’d with each other much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all that time we never had among us the smallest Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear Sunshine, without any the least Cloud in its Hemisphere. Let me conclude by saying to you what I have had too frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old Friends, the fewer we become, the more let us love one another” (Papers 39:67–68). Autograph letter signed ("BFranklin") to Mary “Polly” Stevenson (“My Dear Friend”), 2 pages (318 x 201 mm) on a bifolium of laid paper (watermarked Pro Patria with Maid of Dort, countermarked crowned GR), London, 22 March 1762, regarding her study of electricity and other subjects, eight-line autograph postscript, integral leaf with autograph address panel (“To | Miss Stevenson | at Mrs. Tickell’s | Wanstead Essex”) on verso; some light staining at top of first page, long separations at head and foot of central vertical fold, a short marginal separation at horizontal fold, seal tear and repair, but red wax seal preserved largely intact. Half maroon morocco folding-case gilt, chemise. Franklin congratulates Stevenson on her reading his Experiments and Observations on Electricity in the French translation of Thomas-François Dalibard, and responds to a question she had posed in a letter to him, 10 March 1762, concerning Leyden jars: “I was about to ask a Question I find you cannot answer—How it happens that the Surface of the Bottle which contains less than it’s natural Quantity of Electric Fire does not immediately replenish itself from the Hand that holds it, unless the Fire which has a Communication with the other Surface is applied to something that will receive it’s superabundant Quantity” (Papers 10:65–66). He here replies, “I must retract the Charge of Idleness in your Studies, when I find you have gone thro’ the doubly difficult Task of reading so big a Book on an abstruse Subject and in a foreign Language. “The Question you were about to ask is a very sensible one.— The Hand that holds the Bottle receives & conducts away the electric Fluid that is driven out of the outside by the repulsive Power of that which is forc’d into the inside of the Bottle. As long as that Power remains in the same Situation, it must prevent the Return of what it had expell’d; tho’ the Hand would readily supply the Quantity if it could be receiv’d.—” These two opening paragraphs appear, virtually verbatim, as Letter LIII in the 1769 (pp. 460–61) and 1774 (pp. 470–71) editions of Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America. The letter then turns to the topic of a new play that Stevenson was keen to see, a comedy in verse by William Whitehead that had premiered the previous month, and Franklin does not miss the opportunity to gently tease her about the title: “Your good Mama bids me tell you, that she has made Enquiry and finds that the School for Lovers will not be acted till the Benefits are over; but when she hears that it is to be acted she will send you timely Notice. I need not add, that your and your Friends Company at Dinner that Day will be a great Pleasure to us all. But methinks ’tis a Pity, that when you are so desirous of studying in that School, it should not be open, and must we be depriv’d of the Happiness of seeing you till it is? Rather than that should be, I would almost venture to undertake reading you a few Lectures on the Subject myself.” Franklin requests that she send Dalibard’s translation of his work (which he terms “the French Letters, on Electricity”) to him “as a Friend is desirous of perusing them.” He closes by sending his “sincere Respects to Mrs. Tickell, Mrs. Rooke, Miss Pitt, etc.,” but adds a postscript that has evidently not previously appeared in print: “P. S. We were greatly alarm’d in the Night between Friday & Saturday by a Fire at the Bottom of the Street that has almost destroy’d two Houses. Our House & Yard were cover’d with falling Coals of Fire but as it rain’d hard nothing catch’d. We mov’d a few of the most valuable Things; but suffer’d no Damage, tho’ we lost——some Rest.” This bit of news, since it concerned her mother’s house, might well have been quite distressing to Stevenson, which is undoubtedly why Franklin added a joke to the conclusion. REFERENCES Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Cohn, 37:144–145 (not locating the original, text [surprisingly accurate, but lacking the postscript entirely] taken from Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262) PROVENANCE Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262, The Great Autograph Sale, 1 July 1920, lot 31 (undesignated consignor) — Robert L. McNeil Jr., of Philadelphia (acquired by Snider from the McNeil estate through the offices of Joe Rubinfine American Historical Autographs)

View 1 of Lot 82: Benjamin Franklin | A lesson in electricity, later printed in Experiments and Observations

benjamin franklin | a lesson in electricity, later printed in experiments and observations

Benjamin Franklin Autograph letter signed (“BFranklin,” with paraph) to his grandson William Temple Franklin (“Dear Child”), one page (234 x 180 mm) on a leaf of laid paper (watermarked Pro Patria with Maid of Dort, countermarked crowned GR), Passy, 29 August 1784, regarding the purchase of a printing press, with a four-line postscript dated “Sept. 1” written longitudinally in the left margin, two reception/file dockets on verso; fold separations and repairs with a few tiny losses not affecting text. Half black morocco folding-case gilt, chemise. With ratified versions of the Treaty of Paris having been exchanged in Paris three months earlier, Franklin turns his attention to an earlier interest of his: printing presses. He asks his grandson, and personal secretary, William Temple Franklin to obtain an English-made press for a friend in Paris. The younger Franklin—having just learned that he was not to be retained as secretary of the new United States commission to France, headed by Thomas Jefferson, but to be replaced by David Humphreys—was travelling to London to try to reconcile with his father, the Loyalist William Franklin, and to try to persuade some of his grandfather’s friends, including Mary “Polly” Hewson and William Strahan to return with him to Passy. “I received last Night your Letter from Calais, and was glad to hear you were so far safe.— “When I liv’d in London, there was a Letter-founder of the Name of Moore who liv’d somewhere near Moorfields. He made Printing-Presses of a new Construction, which I lik’d much, and bought one for Lord le Despencer. I have undertaken to procure one for a Friend here, and desire you would buy it, & send it to Calais by the Stage from London first to Dover; or, which is better, by some Vessel to Rouen.— That which I bought cost I think but 5 Guineas: perhaps they may now be cheaper.—” According to a note in the Papers, “In 1771 the typefounder Isaac Moore patented, with his partner William Pine, a lever-and-fulcrum press and a screw press with a detachable fly weight. It is not known which of these [Franklin] bought for Baron Le Despencer (Sir Francis Dashwood).” The friend for whom Franklin was ordering a second Moore press was Etienne-Alexandre-Jacques Anisson-Duperon (known as Anisson fils), who would write to Franklin on 8 November 1784 to remind him of “la nouvelle presse angloise que aviez bien voulu me promettre de me faire venir de Londres.” Two days later, Franklin assured Anisson fils that William Temple “writes to me that he has bought your Press, which cost Eight Guineas; and that it will be sent by a Ship to Rouen” (Papers 43:246, 262). Franklin relays other news, including having dined with the Adamses, British peace commissioner David Hartley, patroness of the arts and sciences Anne-Catherine de Ligniville d’Autricourt Helvétius, and others. According to the journal of the younger Abigail Adams, the party also included John Paul Jones. “M. le Veillard is better, & gets up.— I think I am better too. I din’d yesterday at Auteuil with Mr. Adams. Made. Helvetius took me there in her Coach, & Mr Hartley brought me home; and I suffer’d no Inconvenience.” Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard was Franklin’s close friend and neighbor in Passy, proprietor of a mineral-water aquifer that provided both drinking water and a spa; he was guillotined during the Terror. Franklin continues: “Aug. 30. I intended this for the Post of this Day, but have been prevented.— I shall try to write some others to send with it by Mr Hartley’s Courier on Thursday—”; and then makes a final request: “Bring with you two or three small Pencils, black lead, for my Pencil Case. They must not be bigger in Diameter than this Circle [Franklin has drawn a circle five mm in diameter]. I am ever Your affectionate Grandfather.” The postscript adds, “I have not had time to write any other Letters, the Commrs. meeting every Day at my House— All well.— M. Le Veillard excepted; but he is better.—” Benjamin Franklin urged William Temple (the illegitimate son of Franklin’s own acknowledged extra-marital son, William) to undertake this trip to England partly to avoid embarrassment at having lost his position, but more importantly, to act as go-between between his father and grandfather. Responding to an overture from Benjamin, William Franklin had written to his father in the summer of 1784, stating that “Ever since the Termination of the unhappy Contest between Great Britain and America, I have been anxious to write to you, and to endeavour to revive that affectionate Intercourse and Connexion which till the Commencement of the late Troubles had been the Pride and Happiness of my Life. … Now I have broken the Ice, many Things occur which I much want an Opportunity to mention; too many, indeed, for the Limits of a Letter, and some of them respecting private Family Affairs, of a very important Nature, that cannot well be adjusted without a personal Interview. I shall therefore, if you are not likely to be soon in England, be happy to have your Approbation to wait on you at Paris” (Papers 42:432–436). Franklin’s response, 16 August 1784, was both warm and reserved: “I received your Letter of the 22d past, and am glad to find that you desire to revive the affectionate Intercourse that formerly existed between us. It will be very agreable to me. Indeed nothing has ever hurt me so much and affected me with such keen Sensations, as to find my self deserted in my old Age by my only Son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up Arms against me, in a Cause wherein my good Fame, Fortune and Life were all at Stake. … This is a disagreable Subject. I drop it. And we will endeavour as you propose mutually to forget what has happened relating to it, as well as we can.— … I shall be glad to see you when convenient, but would not have you come here at present. You may confide to your Son the Family Affairs you wished to confer upon with me, for he is discreet” (Papers 43:8–12). Resolving these “Family Affairs”—not procuring a printing press—was the true purpose of the trip being undertaken by William Temple Franklin at the time this letter was written. Correspondence from Franklin to William Temple is surprisingly scarce since they were so often in each other’s company. REFERENCES Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Cohn, 43:72–73 PROVENANCE Christie’s New York, 15 December 2005, lot 232 (“The Property of a Gentleman”)

View 1 of Lot 127: Benjamin Franklin | Ordering a printing press—and opening reconciliation with his son

benjamin franklin | ordering a printing press—and opening reconciliation with his son

James McNeill Whistler A collection of books by and pertaining to James McNeill Whistler, including: Campbell Dodgson, The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler. London: The Studio, Limited, 1922 Theodore Duret, Whistler. London: Grant Richards Ltd, 1917, 4to, original blue cloth, boards worn; Arthur Jerome Eddy, Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler. London: Philadelphia & London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1903, cloth over brown boards; A.E. Gallatin, Whistler: Notes and Footnotes, and other Memoranda. New York and London: The Collector and Art Critic Co. and Elkin Mathews, 1907, 8vo, pink cloth; A.E. Gallatin, Whistler's Pastels and Other Modern Profiles. New York and London: John Lane, 1913, new edition, 8vo, cloth; A.E. Gallatin, Whistler's Art Dicta and Other Essays. Boston and London: Charles E. Goodspeed and Elkin Mathews, 1914, 8vo, marbled boards; Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys To the Homes of Eminent Artists: Whistler. East Aurora, NY: self-published, 1902, number 208 of 940 copies, 4to, inscribed to Adolf Vögtlin from James Carleton Young, suede covers, deckle edges; James Laver, Whistler. London: Penguin Books, 1942, 8vo, original wrappers, covers detached; James Laver, Whistler. London: Faber and Faber, 1951, 8vo, original cloth, dust-jacket, dust-jacket price-clipped and frayed at edges; Mortimer Menpes, Whistler As I Knew Him. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1904, 4to, original cloth, frontispiece loose, loss at spine; Elizabeth Mumford, Whistler's Mother. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1940, first edition, 8vo, original boards, dust-jacket, dust-jacket worn; Albert Parry, Whistler's Father. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1939, blue cloth and burgundy morocco, binding worn; E.R. and J. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler. London: William Heinemann, 1908, two volumes, number 92 of 150 copies signed by the publisher, folio, mustard gilt-ruled half morocco; E.R. and J. Pennell, The Whistler Journal. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1921, autograph edition, small 4to, original vellum-backed buckram; E.R. and J. Pennell, The Whistler Journal. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1921, small 4to, original boards; Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of Works by James A. McN. Whistler with a Bibliography. London: Published under the authority of His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1921, small folio, original wrappers, wrappers worn at edges; T.R. Way and G.R. Dennis, The Art of J. McNeill Whistler. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903, small 4to, original gilt-stamped cloth, boards stained, endleaves spotted; Thomas R. Way, Memories of James McNeill Whistler. London: John Lane, 1912, two volumes, small 4to, gilt-stamped cloth (two copies), ink-stain to upper board of one volume, endleaves of other volume, spotted bindings worn; Frederick Wedmore, Whistler and Others. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1906, 8vo, gilt-stamped brown cloth, boards worn; James McNeill Whistler, Nocturnes, Marines, & Chevalet Pieces. London: [Tite Street, Chelsea, 1878], small 4to, original wrappers; James McNeill Whistler, Etchings and Dry Points. Venice. Second Series. London: Tite Street, Chelsea, [1883], small 4to, original wrappers; James McNeill Whistler, "Notes"—"Harmonies"—"Nocturnes.". London: Tite Street, Chelsea, 1884, small 4to, original wrappers; James McNeill Whistler, Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock.". London: Chatto and Windus, 1888, small 4to, original wrappers (two copies); James McNeill Whistler, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. London: William Heinemann, 1890, small 4to, gilt-tooled upper cover, deckled edges; James McNeill Whistler, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. London: William Heinemann, 1890, number 42 of 250 copies, 4to, gilt-tooled upper cover, deckled edges; James McNeill Whistler, The Baronet & the Butterfly, A Valentine with a Verdict. New York: R.H. Russell, 1899, number 82 of 250, signed by Whistler with his butterfly monogram, 4to, gilt-tooled upper cover, deckled edges, housed in green buckram slipcase; James McNeill Whistler, Eden versus Whistler: The Baronet & the Butterfly, A Valentine with a Verdict. Paris: Louis-Henry May, 1899, 4to, gilt-tooled upper cover, deckled edges; [James McNeill Whistler], An Illustrated Catalogue of the Whistler Exhibition. London: Ballantyne Press, 1905, luxe edition, 4to, bookplates of Theodore Besterman and Cornelius Verheyden de Lancey, half mustard cloth over brown boards, deckled edges, spotting and browning to endleaves, boards lightly worn; [James McNeill Whistler], An Illustrated Catalogue of the Whistler Exhibition. London: Ballantyne Press, 1905, third edition, 4to, bookplates of Theodore Besterman and Cornelius Verheyden de Lancey, unbound, lacking front free endpaper; [James McNeill Whistler], Paintings, Drawings, Etchings & Lithographs. London: Ballantyne Press, 1905, third edition, small 4to, original wrappers, wrappers worn, loss to spine; James McNeill Whistler, "Ten O'Clock": A Lecture by James A. McNeill Whistler. Portland, MN: Thomas Bird Mosher, 1920, 8vo, gilt-tooled upper cover; James McNeill Whistler, James McNeill Whistler: An exhibition of paintings and other works, organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the English-speaking union of the United States. London: W.S. Cowell, 1960, 4to, original covers, back cover annotated; Wilde v Whistler: an acrimonious correspondence on art between Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. London: privately printed, 1996, the Estelle Doheny copy, one of 400, 4to, original wrappers, housed in quarter black morocco slipcase; [with:] A selection of ephemera pertaining to Whistler, including an annotated typescript of an undergraduate essay written by Christopher Cone, a transparency of a Whistler painting, two photographs of Whistler paintings,

View 1 of Lot 149:  James McNeill Whistler | A collection of antiquarian books

james mcneill whistler | a collection of antiquarian books

Benjamin Franklin Autograph document signed (“Errors excepted per BFranklin,” with large paraph) as colonial agent for Georgia, signed a second time (“BFranklin”) in text, one page on a quarter sheet of paper (165 x 295 mm), Philadelphia, 7 October 1776, being an invoice to the Province of Georgia for “three Years Service as their Agent in England”; browned, laid down on heavier stock, closing some tiny losses and fold separations, with some abrasion and loss of surface paper but costing only a single letter of text and a few very short sections of rules. Half green morocco folding-case gilt, chemise. Franklin’s long tenure as Colonial Agent in England for Pennsylvania (1757–1775) is well known and studied, and, because of his entanglement with the Hutchinson letters, so is his service in the same role for Massachusetts (1771–1775). But Franklin also represented the affairs of two other North American colonies in Parliament: New Jersey (1769–1775 [concurrent with his son William’s term as royal governor of that province]) and Georgia (1768–1774). “The Doctor was appointed Georgia agent in the spring of 1768 as a compromise selection, in the hope that his appointment would end a two-year feud between the two houses of the Georgia legislature. For two years the lower house had attempted to appoint Charles Garth, who was already serving as South Carolina's agent. The upper house consistently refused to concur in the appointment of Garth, and Governor James Wright had backed the upper house by persuading officials in London not to receive Garth as Georgia's agent. Hoping to end the political stalemate, Wright responded positively in the early months of 1768 when the lower house proposed Franklin for the agency. Although the upper house exhibited little enthusiasm for the Doctor, its members went along. … The effective date of Franklin's appointment was 1 June 1768, and the ordinance by which it was made, called upon the new agent to ‘follow and pursue all such instructions, as he shall from time to time receive from the General Assembly’ or from the Assembly's Committee of Correspondence, which was to consist of nine men from the lower house and five from the upper house. Seven members of the committee constituted a quorum and could send instructions, as long as at least two members from the upper house were present when the committee met. The new agent's salary was to be £100 per year over and above expenses” (Morgan, pp. 136–37). Franklin’s formal appointment as Agent for Georgia lapsed on 1 June 1771 and was never renewed, although he continued to represent the colony’s interests. In March 1774, Grey Elliott, a Georgia planter resident in London, was appointed as alternate Colonial Agent for Georgia, with power to act in Franklin’s absence. At the time Franklin sent this invoice, he had been back in America for more than a year and was shortly to sail the Atlantic again for Paris. He had evidently received no monies from Georgia for almost six years. Franklin’s neat statement of accounts is headed “Province of Georgia to BFranklin.” The left column lists his fees and expenses, which total £439.5.11: “To three Years Service as their Agent in England at 100£ Sterling per Ann.} £300.0.0 “To Cash paid for a Mace, Gowns, &c.——107.12.9 “To Do. paid Thos. Life Esqr. Sollicetor 16.1.2 “To Coach & Chair hire, Fees at Offices, and other small Expenses————} 15.12.0” In the right column, Franklin details his compensation received, which leaves him a “Balance” due of £219.5.11: “1770 June 20. By a Bill of Exchange———£100.0.0 “Dec. 11. By Ditto2 Bills————£120.0.0” Franklin’s claim for his agreed to annual salary is unremarkable, as are the charges for various “small Expenses” and for the lawyer Thomas Life, who was appointed to serve with Richard Jackson as London agent for Connecticut in 1760, but who frequently acted as Franklin’s lawyer, including during the Hutchinson letters affair. Less justifiable, perhaps, was the more than £107 charged for the ceremonial regalia required for his attendance at Parliament, which must assuredly already been part of his wardrobe. The Franklin Papers record the final settlement for Franklin’s Massachusetts agency, £1,851 allocated by the colony’s House of Representatives on 23 October 1775 (Papers 22:243–244). Massachusetts had a particular motivation to stay in Franklin’s good graces, as he had been appointed, 30 September 1775, together with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, to a committee of the Continental Congress to meet at Cambridge with George Washington, recently appointed commander in chief of the newly formed Continental Army, and representatives of the New England colonies to address the commander’s concerns and determine “the most effectual method of continuing, supporting, and regulating a continental army.” Indeed, the very day the committee was appointed, Massachusetts congressional delegate John Adams wrote to James Warren, speaker of the Massachusetts House, asking, “Will it not be excellent Politicks to make Dr Franklin welcome by making him a grant of what is due to him from the Province? if you grant it in your provisional Paper, I suppose you can change it for him into continental” (cf. Papers of John Adams 3:173 and Letters of Delegates to Congress 2:80–81 note). Interestingly, Adams’s letter was carried to Warren by Franklin. Georgia may not have felt the same incentive to settle her debt to Franklin; at the least, there is no record in the Papers of Benjamin Franklin that she did so. On 25 October 1776, Franklin sent a copy of his invoice—almost certainly the present document—to Savannah doctor and statesman Noble Wimberly Jones, explaining, “Being just about to embark for Europe, I take the Liberty of troubling you with my Acct. and requesting you would be so good as to procure an Adjustment of it from your Government, and remit the Sum you receive to my Son-in-law Richard Bache, Secretary of the General Post Office Residing in this Place, whose Rect. shall be a Discharge” (Papers 22:670–671). Franklin’s letter to Jones is now held by the Massachusetts Historical Society, but the enclosed accounting is no longer with it. In a note, the Papers point out that a transcription of the invoice “dated Philadelphia, Oct. 7, 1776, which may have been what he enclosed,” was published in The Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America, vol. 1 (1857), p. 311, “and has since disappeared.” The note describing Franklin’s account with Georgia is signed “W. S. P.,” and the author stated that the document was in his possession. This may well have been William Stevens Perry (1832–1898), an Episcopal bishop and educator; see William Cushing, Initials and Pseudonyms: A Dictionary of Literary Disguises (New York, 1886). REFERENCES David T. Morgan, The Devious Dr. Franklin, Colonial Agent: Benjamin Franklin’s Years in London (Mercer University Press, 1996), passim PROVENANCE Probably William Stevens Perry (see above) — Christie’s New York, 18 June 2020, lot 92 (undesignated consignor)

View 1 of Lot 113: Benjamin Franklin | "three Years Service as [Georgia's] Agent in England at 100£ Sterling per Ann.".

benjamin franklin | "three years service as [georgia's] agent in england at 100£ sterling per ann.".

Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana. Part 1

Chassériau, Benoît A highly significant group of 69 documents, mostly manuscripts, in Spanish, concerning the “Expedicion secreta” against the forts of Portobelo (Panama) led in January 1814 by the Free State of Cartagena de Indias—the first area of current Colombia that declared itself absolutely Independent from Spain. Benoît Chassériau was commander-in-chief of the secret expedition and of the Western Army of Cartagena. These records are of particular importance because most of the official Columbian archives related to the Free State of Cartagena of indias (1811–1815) were destroyed during the wars of independence. Panama became both a military depot for supplies and troops as well as a staging area for operations against the rebels on the Atlantic coast of New Granada. This naturally made Panama the target of the rebels in Cartagena. The attack by the secret expedition began on 16 January 1814, when a force of eight schooners and 460 men, mostly privateers, under the command of Benoît Chassériau, attacked Portobelo. The royalists, under Governor Joaquin Rodriguez Valcarcel, repulsed the invaders and sent them fleeing back to Cartagena. To lead the naval division, Benoît Chassériau selected Renato Beluche, a corsair associated with the Lafitte brothers who was known for his bravery and his soul as a leader. Beluche had obtained the rank of lieutenant in Cartagena and later became Bolívar's "favorite admiral." From the schooner General Bolívar, he would lead eight captains and privateers: Charles Lominé who will continue fighting alongside Bolívar, Pedro Dupin, Jean-Baptiste Pemerlé, Juan Lachicotte, Matías Padrón, Fortunato Lepta and Domingo De Mesa. (See Nouvion, L'ami des Colombiens, Benoît Chassériau (1780–1844), Paris, 2018 (pp. 47–59 specifically discuss the secret expedition to Portobelo); Sosa, Compendio de Historia de Panamá, Ediiciones LAVP, 2017; Vogel, “Rebel without a Cause: The Adventure of Louis Aury,” in Laffite Society Chronicles VIII (2002): 3.) Calendar of the 69 documents * Chassériau, autograph manuscript report of military operations to the President of the Free State of Cartagena de Indias, Manuel Rodríguez Torices (1788–1816), on board the schooner General Bolívar, 19 January 1814. * Proclamation of Benoît Chassériau, commander-in-chief of the Western Army of Cartagena to his fellow citizens and neighbors of Portobelo (Benito Chasseriau, comandante en Jefe del ejército de occidente de Cartagena a sus conciudadanos los vecinos de Portobelo” “en frente de la ciudad de Portobelo, 15 de enero de 1814”). 2 pages. This proclamation was printed for distribution to the population of Portobelo. * Proclamation of Benoît Chassériau, commander-in-chief of the to the Authorities of Portobelo, 2 pages. This proclamation was printed for distribution to the authorities of Portobelo. * Address of Benoît Chassériau to the soldiers of the Expedition ("A todos los militares que componen la Expedición … Terrible en el combate, y generoso en la Victoria, tal es la divisa del verdadero guerrero," “en la ensanada de Buenaventura, 15 de Enero de 1814”), 2 pages. * 5 notes and letters of Lieutenant Renato Beluche, privateer, commander the naval forces of the expedition. Beluche became Bolívar’s favorite admiral and was the victor of the battles of Lake Maracaibo. His remains are in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. * Note on the necessity of the 16-gauge artillery piece, one page. * “Cantidad de los tripulación embarcado a bordo de los corsarios”; a roster of the crews on board the corsairs, one page. * “Cantidad de los fusiles desembarcados por los corsarios de la División baro el mando del Comandante Chassériau”; inventory of the umber of rifles by schooner, one page; with 2 related letters. * 7 letters of Antoine Leleux, Secretary of War of the Free State of Cartagena, former aide-de-camp of Francisco de Miranda and close friend of Simón Bolívar, including the letter confirming that President Torices had authorized the expedition. * “Relación de los gastos indispensables que he pagado del dinero entregado a mi disposición en la expedición dirigida contra Portobelo en el presente mes de Enero de 1814,” 2 pages. * “Relación de las armas que par orden al Excelentísimo Señor Presidente gobernador del Estado siguen para la expedición” by Juan Bolsa and Antonio Anoulo; 4 inventories of weapons, 4 pages. * “Proyectos de instrucciones para el comandante de la Expedición secreta”; instructions for the commander of the Expedicion secreta, 5 pages. * Budget of the expedition (“2300 pesos … 600 en platas y 1700 en billetes”) by Marcos Fernández de Sotomayor (from 1811, he occupied the Secretariat of the Bishopric and later became Secretary of the Treasury until the fall of Cartagena in the hands of Morillo). * Report of the abandonment of the brigantine Hercules following damage, 9 January 1814, 2 pages. Signed by the eight captains: Charles Lominé, Pedro Dupin, Jean-Baptiste Pemerlé, Juan Lachicotte, Matías Padrón , Fortunato Lepta and Domingo De Mesa. * Memorandum of the official decision to retreat in the face of much larger Spanish armed forces, 24 January 1814, 2 pages. Signed by Captain Félix Layet, Lieutenant Jeronimo Scarpetta (New Grenada Battalion), Captain Carlos de Lamereux (infantry), Captain Hippolyte Dufour Davas (Cavalry). * Memorandum on the need for weapons and food for the schooner El Ribon, by Captain Jean-Baptiste Pemerlé, one page. * Memorandum on the need for weapons and food for the schooner El Carmen, one page. * “Repartición de embarque de las tropas destinadas a la expedición secreta a bordo de los buques de la División”; memorandum regarding the distribution of the troops aboard the ships of the division, one page. * 8 receipts for sabers and other weapons (“Recibos de sables etc… ”), signed by Lieutenant Jeronimo Scarpetta, Dr. Federico Meyer, chief medical officer of the expedition, and others. * “Repartición de 342 pesos en doblones, los 2/5 para la Cámara, y los 3/5 a las tropas,” one page. * 30 letters and notes including one letter by Juan Guillermo Ros, Secretary of State and Interior — 3 letters by Juan General Salvador Narváez (1788–1827) — one letter by Juan Robertson (1767–1815), General Secretary General of the Government of Curaçao (1808–1812), who sympathized with the revolution of Caracas. (In 1812, he settled in Caracas and served Miranda there. Bolívar sent Lino de Clemente and Juan Robertson to the British government for recognition of Latin American Independence. Robertson was the English translator of the "Carta de Jamaica" and the author of the first known biography of Simón Bolívar.) — one letter by Juan Elias Lopez, governor of Cartagena — one letter by Juan Bolsa — one letter by Captain Félix Layet — one letter by Lieutenant Jeronimo Scarpetta — one letter by Captain Roberto Capoul — one letter by Captain Domingo De Mesa — one letter by Doctor Federico Meyer — one letter by F. Dupeyron, former secretary of Francisco de Miranda. This lot and lots 341–347 in Part 2 are components of an extensive and remarkable archive of papers, manuscript and printed, by and relating to the French diplomat and spy Benoît Chassériau (1780–1844), whose life reads like swashbuckling fiction: patriotic combatant during Colombia's war of independence; Minister of the Interior and of Police for the Free State of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia); comrade in arms of Simón Bolívar; commander-in-chief of the Western Army of Cartagena in the campaign against Portobelo (Panama) in 1814; schemer-in-chief of the planned French secret expedition against Panama in 1820; the first diplomat sent to Colombia in 1824 by Viscount François-René de Chateaubriand, French minister of Foreign Affairs; Consul in Saint Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) and Puerto Rico—and father of the Dominican-born French Romantic painter Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856). All of this material, mostly in French or Spanish, descended within the family from Benoît Chassériau to his son Frédéric-Charles Chassériau (1807–1881; State Councilor and historian of the Navy), thence to a cousin, Baron Arthur Chassériau (1850–1934; stockbroker, banker, art collector, and major donor to the Louvre), and by continued descent to the present owner.

View 1 of Lot 201: Chassériau, Benoît | The “Expedicion secreta” of the Free State of Cartagena de Indias against the forts of Portobelo (Panama) 

chassériau, benoît | the “expedicion secreta” of the free state of cartagena de indias against the forts of portobelo (panama)

Adams, John Autograph letter signed, as Vice President, responding to a summons One page, 4to (230 x 200 mm to sight). Autograph letter signed (“John Adams”), to the Secretary of State [Edmund Randolph], Quincy, 16 March 1795; minor browning at edges, old folds, one or two short closed tears. Neatly inlaid, matted and framed with a portrait of Adams. Not examined out of frame. Reading in full: Dear Sir, According to your desire, expressed in your Note of March the 7th, I do myself the Honour to acknowledge the Receipt of it, and will attend my Duty at the Senate Chamber in Philadelphia on the eighth of June next, according to the Summons from the President of the United States, to whom I pray you to present my most affectionate Respects. I am, Sir, with greet Esteem, your most obedient and humble Servant, John Adams. The Vice President is summoned to the Senate Chamber to debate the Jay Treaty. John Jay had signed the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation with Great Britain in London on 19 November 1794. The signed copy reached Philadelphia in early March 1795, days before Randolph's note of the 7th. President Washington summoned the Senate to convene on 8 June for a special session for the sole purpose of considering the Jay Treaty. That session opened the bitterest treaty fight of the early republic. Debate was conducted under an injunction of secrecy. The Senate ratified on 24 June by exactly the two-thirds required (20–10), with the article on West Indian trade struck. When the terms leaked the following month through Benjamin Franklin Bache's Aurora, public reaction was violent, and the Federalist-Republican rupture hardened. Effigies of Jay were burned in several cities, and Hamilton was stoned in New York while defending the treaty. Randolph had succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State in January 1794 and was, in March 1795, five months from his own destruction. In late summer, the Royal Navy intercepted dispatches from the French minister Fauchet, which, presented to Washington by his Federalist cabinet on 19 August, appeared to show Randolph soliciting French money in connection with the Whiskey Rebellion. He resigned the same day. For Adams, the 8 June session marked the beginning of his own ascent. He had been calculatingly quiet through two terms as Washington's deputy. Federalist consolidation around the treaty (which Adams supported) was a principal current carrying him to the presidency twenty-one months later. PROVENANCE Rt Hon the Third Viscount Astor, the collection largely formed by William Waldorf Astor (1848-1919), First Lord Astor of Hever Castle (Sotheby’s London, 8 April 1968, lot 444)

View 1 of Lot 348: Adams, John | The Vice President is summoned to the Senate Chamber to debate the Jay Treaty

adams, john | the vice president is summoned to the senate chamber to debate the jay treaty

Benjamin Franklin Autograph address with franking signature ("B Free Franklin") as Deputy Postmaster General of the American Colonies on an address panel (84 x 105 mm) cut from an integral blank, [London, 12 June 1766], directed "To | George Read, Esqr. | New castle | Pensilvania | via New York Packet}," with red circular "FREE" handstamp; light diagonal crease. Red morocco folding-case gilt. A fine and very early example of Franklin's cleverly subversive franking signature: "B Free Franklin," perhaps the most desirable early American free frank (his standard frank was the more straightforward "Free B Franklin"). This address panel must have covered Franklin's brief note to George Read of 12 June 1766, the only letter to Read recorded by The Papers of Benjamin Franklin: "I received your letter of April 14th, and immediately made an application in your favor. It will be a pleasure to me if it succeeds. But the Treasury have so many to provide for that we must not be surprised if we are disappointed. My regards to your good mother, and believe me, with sincere regard, your assured friend and most humble servant." In his letter, Read, who would later sign the Declaration of Independence as one of Delaware's delegates to the Continental Congress, asked Franklin to help him secure the appointment as Collector of the Port of New Castle. Franklin's frank with the handstamp allowed this letter to travel without charge by packet ship to New York City, where it was carried by post to New Castle. Postal packet ships sailed once a month between Cornwall, England, and New York City. We have been able to trace only four other examples of this form of Franklin's franking signature during his tenure as Deputy Postmaster General of the American Colonies in Rare Book Hub since 1943. REFERENCES Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Labaree, 13:313 (original lost; text taken from William T. Read, Life and Correspondence of George Read, Philadelphia, 1870, p. 24) PROVENANCE Sotheby's New York, 14 June 2016, lot 216 (undesignated consignor) — Barbara and Ira Lipman (Sotheby's New York, 13 April 2021, lot 171

View 1 of Lot 101: Benjamin Franklin | A subtly subversive franking signature: "B Free Franklin"

benjamin franklin | a subtly subversive franking signature: "b free franklin"

Benjamin Franklin Autograph document signed three times ("B. Franklin"), one page (158 x 198 mm) on a slip of laid paper, [Philadelphia, 1743], being a bill directed to "The Revd. Mr. Clapp … for Printing and Binding 500 of Dr. Mather's Soul-saving Gospel Truths"; cryptic contemporary note at lower margin, some minor fold separations. Matted. [Accompanied by:] Increase Mather. Soul-saving Gospel Truths; delivered in several Sermons, Wherein is shewed: I. The Unreasonableness of those Excuses which Men make for their Delaying to come to the Lord Jesus Christ for Salvation. II. That for Men to despair of the Forgiveness of their Sins because they have been Great, is a great Evil. III. That every Man in the World is going into Eternity. Philadelphia: Printed by B. Franklin, 1743 (colophon, G12r: Boston, Printed 1701. Philadelphia, Reprinted, 1744). Pot 12mo (126 x 72 mm). Type-ornament head- and tailpieces; scattered staining, lower fore-edge corners worn. Contemporary calf; worn, rebacked with loss to head of spine, recornered. [And accompanied by:] Thomas Clap, compiler. [A Catalogue of the Library of Yale-College in New-Haven. New London: Timothy Green, 1743.] 8vo in half-sheets (145 x 92 mm). Type ornament headpieces; title-page in facsimile; lightly stained. Later marbled wrappers. Half red morocco slipcase gilt, chemise. An intriguing triumvirate of articles illuminating Franklin’s early career as a highly successful job printer, not only of government forms and records, but also tracts and pamphlets of a theological nature. All of Franklin’s later endeavors were made possible by his initial success as a printer. In the document offered here, written entirely in Franklin’s hand, the printer bills Thomas Clap, the sixth rector of Yale College—and the first to be called by the title, “president,” for bringing a new edition of Increase Mather’s sermons off the press: “The Revd. Mr. Clapp [sic] to B. Franklin For Printing and Binding 500 of Dr. Mather’s Soul-saving Gospel Truths (per Agreemt.) £100..0..0 Rh. Island Money———B. Franklin.” Franklin then instructs Clap, “Please to pay the above to my Brother Peter Franklin, and his Receipt shall discharge you from Your obliged humb. Servt. B. Franklin.” Mather’s sermons had previously appeared in two Boston editions: the first sold, and presumably printed, by Eleazer Phillips, 1703 (ESTC W22326; Evans 1134), and the second printed by T. Green, for B. Eliot, in King-Street, 1712 (ESTC W19809; Evans 1569). (Despite Franklin’s colophon there was no 1701 printing of Soul-saving Gospel Truths). Franklin’s edition is essentially a page-by-page resetting of the 1703 edition and is very rare. No copies are recorded in Rare Book Hub since the Pennypacker sale in 1905, and ESTC seemingly locates only three complete copies. Often embroiled in the religious controversies of his day, Clap had an ardent interest in books. He not only commissioned this edition of Increase Mather, but he served as Yale’s de facto librarian, compiling the first catalogue of Yale’s library in 1743. This work is almost as uncommon in the market as Franklin’s edition of Mather’s sermons, although a number of institutions have copies. In the Reese catalogue Christie’s stated that “The last copy of this book recorded at auction was in the Brinley sale,” but in fact a fine copy, signed by several Yale students, was sold at Scott & O’Shaughnessy, 18 February 1916, lot 26. In his preface, or “Advertisement To the Students of Yale College,” Clap writes “I have here with considerable Labours and Pains, prepared a Catalogue of the Books in the Library under proper Heads that so you may Readily know and find any Book, upon any particular Subject.” He then explains his system of pressmarks: “The First Number signifies the Teer, the Second the Box; and the Third the Number of the Book. …” Clap also advises that the students peruse the approximately 2,600 books listed, “in some Measure according to the Order of this Catalogue. And in the First Year to Study principally the Tongues, Arithmetic and Algebra; the Second, Logic, Rhetoric and Geometry; the Third, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; and the Fourth, Ethics and Divinity. … Above all have an Eye to the great End of all your Studies, which is to obtain the Clearest Conceptions of Divine Things and to lead you to a Saving Knowledge of God in his son Jesus Christ.” Increase Mather’s sermons, which Clap clearly believed was an essential text, is listed on page 36 of the catalogue under the ninth section, Sermons, of the fourth heading, Ethics and Divinity. These three items trace Soul-saving Gospel Truths from commission through production and, finally, to its readers. REFERENCES Document: Miller 328 note; Mather: Miller 328; ESTC W19810; Evans 5249; Hildeburn 836; Campbell 279; Holmes 127c; Sabin 46748; Clap: ESTC W37694; Evans 5320; Trumbull 1715; Sabin 105894 PROVENANCE Document: Clap family archive — Christie’s New York, 9 December 1994, lot 35 (undesignated consignor). Clap: William S. Reese (booklabel on chemise; Christie’s New York, 2 June 2022, lot 386)

View 1 of Lot 28: Benjamin Franklin | God and Man and Franklin and Mather at Yale

benjamin franklin | god and man and franklin and mather at yale

Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester. [Privately Printed for the Author], December 1902 FIRST PRIVATELY PRINTED EDITION [LIMITED TO 500 COPIES], PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ("For Lady Warren | with kind regards from | "Beatrix Potter" | Christmas 1919") on front free endpaper, 16mo, coloured frontispiece and 15 illustrations by Beatrix Potter, original pictorial pink boards, collector’s chemise and slipcase, some loose plates, some browning and spotting, binding worn with some minor loss [with, loosely inserted:] Autograph letter signed (“Beatrix Heelis”), to Lady Warren, sending her this copy of The Tailor of Gloucester, discussing its origins in a story told to her by cousins (“…they told me the story of the tailor; and I added the mice & the old fashioned coats…”), offering another copy to Lady Warren’s friend the poet John Masefield, who has praised the book, and admitting that she “would like to do two or three more stories like that, before my eyes give out completely”, 3 pages, 8vo, embossed stationery of Sawrey, Ambleside, 23 December 1919, some spotting and nicks at folds; [also with:] Frances M. Martin, letter to Lady Warren, 4 pages, December 1919 "...The Tailor never caught on like the others, but he is far the best…" AN INSCRIBED COPY OF THE VOLUME ACCOMPANIED BY A LETTER IN WHICH BEATRIX POTTER GIVES HER OPINION OF THE BOOK. The recipient of this copy was Mary Isabel Warren, a daughter of Sir Benjamin Brodie, Bt, who married Herbert Warren (KCVO, 1914) in 1886. PROVENANCE: Judy Taylor, MBE (1932–2025, publisher and authority on Beatrix Potter); sale in these rooms, 9 July 2019, lot 211

View 1 of Lot 113: Beatrix Potter | The Tailor of Gloucester, 1901, first privately printed edition, inscribed

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