BERKELEY, Calif. — More than 300 antiquarian books and papers, many rarely if ever seen in the marketplace, will cross the block on Thursday, January 11 at PBA Galleries as part of its Antiquarian Books-Natural History-Fine Press sale. The catalog is now available for bidding at LiveAuctioneers.
The sale’s top-estimated lot, at $6,000-$9,000, is An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of China by Edward Donovan (1768-1837). Released in 1798, the book is illustrated with 50 hand-colored copper-engraved plates of various Chinese insects (mostly butterflies) and is accompanied by descriptive letterpress leaves and tissue-guards. Donovan was the founder of the London Museum and Institute of Natural History, which contained his extensive natural history collection. The collection was sold at auction in 1817.
An interesting group of handmade Jewish religious holiday calendars from the Soviet Union period in Russia is another feature of the sale. One of a variety of printed works dubbed ‘samizdat’ — a word that describes dissident publications made without the approval of the government — the calendars were used by Jews to retain their religious holidays despite them having been removed from official Soviet timekeeping publications. The calendars date to the 1970s and early 1980s, just a handful of years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Containing 35 pieces in all, the lot is estimated at $5,000-$8,000.
Equally interesting is a first-edition 20-volume bible, presumably the torah or Old Testament, in the Hebrew Braille language for blind Jewish people. Released after World War II, it is one of only a handful still in existence. The set is estimated at $5,000-$8,000.
The Foulis Press of Glasgow, Scotland was renowned for its quality and accuracy, two elements woefully missing from the early days of movable type printing. Brothers Andrew and Robert founded the press, which worked closely with the University of Glasgow in the publication of scholarly works. A limited folio edition of the Tragedies of Aeschulus in Greek, printed by Foulis Press in 1795 and including 31 full-page engravings by John Flaxman, is estimated at $5,000-$8,000.
When it was released in 1791, James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson set a new standard for biographical works that still stands to this day. Within the book was a collection of Johnson’s writings, plus Boswell’s writings that give the historical context in which Johnson wrote. This first edition, estimated at $3,000-$5,000, contains numerous typographical errors and errata that would be corrected in later editions, definitely dating it to the first release.
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Edward Donovan, ‘An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of China,’ estimated at $6,000-$9,000 at PBA Galleries.
